Everything in my square has come from somewhere else.

Reused, recycled and repurposed.

I did a boro and sashiko retreat last year, and I decided to repurpose the tote bag I made there into the background for my 12 inch square for the FemEdTech Quilt of Care and Justice.

I cut the bag into a rough square larger than 12 inches, and used the offcuts from a linen dress I made earlier in the year to make the heart and two Cs.

I was a involved in the three phases of the UKOER projects and during that time really came to love what Creative Commons stood for. How it facilitates reuse, repurposing ad recycling (as long as you choose the right licence combos!) and how acknowledging what came before is important (unless you choose CC0). The heart and two Cs idea came to me very early on, but it wasn’t until I decided to cut up my tote bag that I really began to think about how to put my square together. Once I did that it took little time to make. All in all I reckon there is about 60 hours of work in my little square.

I also took part in the Embroidered Digital Commons project in 2011-12. Taking the term Quotidian and trying to introduce a daily embroidery practice into our busy lives was challenging for me and my creative partner, Yolande Knight. We did create 32 x 12 inch patches though, and have been trying for a while to fid the time to turn them into a quilt.

I wanted my square for this project to look totally different from our Quotidian squares. Which were fairly minimalist – all on white used cotton sheets, and using a very limited colour palette.

This Love CC square is joyous in its multilayeredness, in its mix of colours, textures, fabrics, shapes, stitches and techniques.

I wanted to contrast the very hand made nature and slow contemplative style of the boro and sashiko inspired background with a fast, machined and fairly professionally finished machine appliqué. I like the way the muted nature of the heart and 2 Cs sits against the brighter and busier background. Until I started machine stitching them on to the background I had no idea if they would stand out enough to be read. Happily it worked.

I really like the contrast between the curvilinear nature of the heart and the two Cs again the reasonably straight lines of the boro patches and running sashiko inspired hand stitching.  Usually I would choose to do the straight lines with a machine and the curvy bits by hand, so I flipped my usual preferred way of approaching this square.

I took it to Macclesfield and together with some U3A volunteers worked with Frances Bell on incorporating all of the squares into 4 quilt tops. I am very proud of the contribution I have made, not only in my square but in the project as a whole, and I hope that I can do more on the quilts before Frances and I run a workshop at OER20, where delegates will be able to make their own marks on the project before it is revealed on day two of the conference.

Hopefully the quilts will get shown in other places so that they can be seen by more people. There is a great deal to look at. And I understand that a digital quilt will also be made. Which will give access to lots of other people to this wonderful project which has brought so many people together.

Shared by: Suzanne Hardy (glittrgirl)
Reuse License: CC BY Creative Commons By Attribution
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