Hospitality Quilt: “Welcome, friends! With Open Arms and Open Hearts!”
It is April 2020. Covid-19 is running rampant. People are dying. People are recovering. And we are under stay-at-home orders globally. And the quilt I am making is Hospitality, a collaboration with Cherrywood Fabrics and Siesta Silver Jewelry. Does that seem a contradiction to you? A quilt named Hospitality when we are in isolation? I think it is actually a fitting quilt for such a time as this.
The Hospitality Quilt (50” x 50”) features Pineapple blocks (12” x 12”) for reverse appliqué with appliqué and paper-piecing. The 4 Crown Pineapple Blocks are pictorial and dimensional with layers created with reverse appliqué, under-coloring and appliqué. The 5 Friendship Pineapple blocks in two colorations are paper-pieced. They are bordered by building blocks of appliquéd Houses, Churches and Schools with paper-pieced Log Cabin blocks on the corners (5” x 5”).
Pineapples are considered an expression of welcome and symbolize hospitality, friendship and warmth. They also symbolize luxury, nobility and prosperity, a meaning held over from Christopher Columbus’ time, when the fruit was very perishable. The fruit itself wears a noble crown of leaves.
Our building blocks that surround Hospitality’s center of 9 pineapple blocks make a community: a town…everyone’s town. A community of houses…the heart of families; and places of worship…the heart of faith; and schools…the heart of learning. The corners of our border are Log Cabin blocks. Log Cabin blocks are built around a center square, a hearth, like a home is built around a hearth, the heart of the home. And here we all are in our homes except for essential workers.
The isolation of these uncertain times has given us pause to re-evaluate and re-value our sense of friendship, community and what’s important. How do we create community when we can’t meet in person? How do we actually connect with one another? We’ve discovered new ways to use the internet, social media and technology to bring us closer together rather than as a way to separate ourselves from each other. I think for many they have actually stopped to make that phone call when they thought about someone rather than putting it off until later.
I’ve seen people dust off and apply the Golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The stay-at-home orders have hit all of us hard socially and financially, but most have put the welfare of others ahead of themselves. That’s a strong sense of community if you ask me.
I’ve seen people go out of their way to value those that serve them. The healthcare workers, the grocery clerks, the truckers, etc. to name a few. Saying thank you. I have seen people find ways to serve others , as quilters have made face masks to donate. Our homes are now the center of our worlds. Our children are going to school on line at home, and with Mom and Dad. Instead of going to church, we are the church via Zoom and within the walls of our homes and our neighborhoods. Social Media at times still is negative, but I see more posts of faith and encouragement and humor as people try to uplift and encourage each other.
Our Hospitality quilt is being constructed during covid-19, but it began for me and my creative collaborators a year ago, in January 2019. It was God saying that He knew the world would need this quilt now. It’s a picture of prophetic creation. When I’m planning a quilt its time is “now, but not yet”. This is encouragement that God has a plan, and none of what’s happening has taken Him by surprise. When I design, I’ve learned to trust my gut instincts, the still small voice of God within, and not think too hard about why I’m making the design choices I’m making. He reveals the meaning in time.
In January of 2019 Karla Piper of Siesta Silver Jewelry and I were in serious conversation about our next quilt block/ jewelry collaboration: the pineapple. The first was Flowers in the Wind table runner with the Spring Love and Tulip jewelry (2018). I had begun to draw out my Pineapple block designs and play with quilt layouts. In April while teaching at AQS Lancaster I found the colorful Cherrywood hand-dyes the quilt is designed in and approached Karla Overland of Cherrywood fabrics about the collaboration. Everything about these fabrics hit me as perfect for this design. The rest, as they say is, history.
The making of the quilt, March 2020, is the “now time” of the quilt’s message. I love listening for God’s voice as I’m stitching. He quietly, steadily speaks, unfolding layers of meaning or deeper revelation about the quilts as I sew. For example, even the fabric’s colors add meaning to the quilt. One of the main colors in the quilt top is a beautiful berry color. As I was stitching the other day God was talking to me about that Berry color being new wine, and how he is making us new wineskins to hold the new wine. To me that means we have the opportunity to be new vessels to hold the new wine of this season of self-quarantine. Interesting though, when photographed from any distance, the berry color tends to read brown, which changes the meaning (see below). I think we are all encouraged to come out of this time period not just as survivors, but transformed, so that this time is not wasted, whatever that means to you. Below are the colors and possible meanings derived from several sources. I encourage you to let the meanings speak to you. There is a positive and a negative aspect to the meaning of these colors, like most things in life. The negatives are in parentheses.
Yellow: Optimistic, cheerful, faith, joy (impatience, criticism, cowardice)
Orange: social communication, optimism, deliverance, passionate praise (pessimism, superficiality)
Green: balance, growth, self-reliance, growth, prosperity, new beginning, flourishing, restoration (possessiveness)
Blue: trust, peace, loyalty, integrity, Holy Spirit, authority (conservativism, frigidity)
Berry (purple/ indigo/magenta/ wine): intuition, imagination, idealism, creative, universal harmony, emotional balance, spiritual yet practical, encouraging common sense and a balance outlook, new birth, overflow (ritualistic, impractical, immature)
Brown: friendly, down-to-earth, serious, protection, comfort, end of season, people (weary, faint)
My hope is the colors in this quilt will encourage and inspire the positive aspects of these colors to blossom in all of us, in me. But as a human, realistic optimist, I know the shadow side is also there. If I can be self-aware I can be mindful of these negative attributes so that on my hard days during this time when those aspects come forth in me, as they have, I can endeavor to turn back in love and grace for myself and towards others. I hope the same can be true for you.
We have all been transformed by Covid-19, one way or another. We live present but to the future with hope. And through it and beyond, quilting is a gift, a creative act of hope.
Eye of the Beholder Quilt Design and my creative collaborators, Siesta Silver Jewelry and Cherrywood Fabrics, invite you to open your heart and open your arms and welcome you in to enjoy a touch of elegance with Hospitality Quilt XVII (50” x 50”), a quilt for such a time as this.
As you make the Hospitality quilt pattern in these glorious fabrics we hope that you will be reminded of this new sense of community where love and respect for self and other flourish. May we live going forward with thankfulness for all who serve us, grateful for what we have, and mindful of those without. As you wear the Crown Pineapple and Friendship Pineapple jewelry may you be reminded of the new wine you have to offer in welcome, friendship and love. May we all unearth the gifts of this Covid-19 time as we live into a new normal. Be safe, stay healthy and be at peace.
Hospitality Quilt (50” x 50”) is available now as a print or digital PDF pattern at www.eobquiltdesign.com and as a kit at www.cherrywoodfabrics.com.
You can purchase the fabulous Crown Pineapple and Friendship Pineapple pendants and earrings at www.siestasilverjewelry.com. All jewelry is nickel-free, .925% indicating pure sterling silver.
Read our Blog (Reverse Applique with Applique and Under-Coloring-Machine & Hand:The Crown Pineapple Block, posted 4/28/2020). If you missed our Facebook live on May 5, where Margaret demo-ed Machine reverse applique with Applique and Under-coloring using the Crown Pineapple block it is posted on our Facebook page.
Read our Blog (Paper-Piecing Know How: Friendship Pineapple Block, posted 4/28/2020)