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MANY-HANDS QUILT PROJECT 2006
1. Mission
To create community by honoring Carolyn Colbert's ministry with us with a magnificent art quilt in her colors that can be displayed on a wall, or used as a lap quilt on chilly evenings, or if we have enough hand-blocks, used as a bed quilt.
We'd also like to keep it as a surprise. We plan to contact the various committees and groups inthe church to publicize the request for photocopies of our real hands to be used in the design to the right --->
 We encourage other ways of expressing our appreciation of Carolyn's ministry with us. Our creative writing group, our poets and punsters, our painters and sculptors, our collage artists and musicians could also create hand-focussed pieces in honor of the gifts Carolyn has brough us in the last 7-8 years.
2. Quilt Design/Description
Cut-outs of Hands machine embroidered onto blocks facing a center block and including diagonals. Plus a few blocks of Carolyn's life including chalice, hearts, kitty paws, candle, spider, "UU", Eugene, 1996-2006, left and right hands, children's hands. Lots of medium-dark reds and blacks. Borders and sashings could brighten it too.
3. Call for Participants - Vision and Basic Request:
- send a photocopy of your right and/or left hand to Lynn's address by Jan 31. Lynn Frost - include the name on each hand
- Suggested donation of up to $5 per hand or per family of hands to cover the costs of batting, backing, thread and postage. If by check, make out to "UUCE" with note in memo line: Farewell Quilt
- Imperfect and unique hands especially welcome
- Tell everyone while still keeping it secret from Carolyn (who, by the way, is on many of the email lists, so don't mention it there) - it's a surprise
- Paper and fabric cutting-and-pasting Work Party
- Basting Work Party - February 18 - RSVP for logistics and menu to lynfro@earthlink.net or maroz@comcast.net
- Poems about hands - newly authored and already-published poems and plays on words: it takes a village of hands, hand it over, hand it on, hands around the world, hands to do the work, etc. are welcome
- Other art and expression about hands and the value of Carolyn's ministry with us are welcome
4. Legend?
No legend is planned as to whose hands these are since they represent all
our collective hands working together to build an idea. No names on back either,
although there will be a large pre-quilting label to honor Carolyn.
[Date, Carolyn's name, UUCE spelled out, "in honor of" and "with love to", city and state...]
5. Website for details
~ downloadable PDF with instructions and design
~ the URL (web address) on any printouts that we make: www.uueugene.org/quilt.html
6. Extra Incentives for community to participate
~ a drawing for everyone who submitted a hand outline for the quilt - one hand, one entry
~ drawing for a wall quilt of four/six hands ("Hands-On Quilt")
~ drawing to be held in early February
~ winner to be announced to the winner, colors chosen, quilt to be presented at the same time presentation of the larger quilt is made to Carolyn
7. Optional Companion Scrapbooking/Boxing idea - Are there folks who might want to run with this idea? How about a collection of poetry, haiku, limericks and sonnets on the topics of farewell, helping hands and such?
8. Formal Request
Send photocopied hand to Lynn by Jan 31
Suggested $5 donation per hand and/or per family of hands (to be used for backing/batting/thread/postage), made out to "UUCE"
Indicate how else you'd like to participate (i.e., work parties or larger donation or scrapbook or relevant poem-writing/finding)
9. Tentative Timeline
- Now - prepare instructions and announcements
Last week of January - set appt with Geo Carroll to choose fabrics
Deadline for photocopied hands: Jan 31, 2006
Paper and Fabric Cutting Party - February 3-5
Hand outlines machine appliqued to square fabric - by February 28
Assembling - Mid February and into March (backing, batting)
Basting Party - FEB 18, 2006
Quilting - March and into April
Border and binding - April
Fudge factor - late April
Presentation - early to mid May 2006; display in sanctuary until the end of the church year.
11. Presentation format and words
TBA
12. "We" at the moment are Lynn Frost and Martha Osgood with George Carroll and other co-conspirators.
The Many-Hands Quilt
The seed of an idea for a quilt came to me from a picture of a prehistoric stylized hand done in mica by a Hopewell Indian. It gave me that tiny bit of inspiration to build a quilt of many hands, using handprints from members of our congregation. I like the idea of art as a source of our faith that Rick Davis, the UU minister in Salem presented to us in February.
I discussed the plan for a community quilt with my quilting buddy, Martha Osgood – who had all kinds of spin-off ideas from my original thoughts. Then I asked other church people about the idea of making a community quilt for Carolyn, using the many-hands concept, and I got all-around approval. Martha and I wrote instructions, which she distributed electronically and, as best as could be done, secretly. People were to send me photocopies of their hands, and those of family members, shared ministry group members, committees and other church groups. Once word got out, my mailbox had daily surprises of photocopied hands. A very touching moment was one in which Merci Weed-Schmidt gave me three copies of her hand, on the very day that she was killed on a bicycle ride with her grandson. Pulling people downstairs between services to the copy machine, so as to add to the volume of handprints was another task. It would take ninety blocks to complete the quilt top.
George Carroll stepped in and offered fabric from his wonderful stash, all arranged by color. Naturally we chose Carolyn colors. Then the cutting, pasting and sewing began with this great selection of fabrics: batiks, splattered cloth, rococo and floral prints, pinks, burgundy swatches, blacks, grays and touches of yellow and gold. Working during the winter hours of darkness, Rebeca Morales timed me at my sewing machine. It takes about five minutes to satin stitch around one hand.
One afternoon in March, Martha and I assembled the finished blocks. We laid them out on my living room rug then she sewed them together as I handed them to her. Ah, the moment had arrived to see the piece go from concept to finished design.
A group of 17 diligent hand-sewing people met at Martha’s for a basting party. This is as close to a quilting bee as this quilt ever got, complete with the requisite warmth and camaraderie. That was about the time I thought of quilting the piece with spider-webs, using Carolyn’s favorite theme of the inter-connected web of life. I wrote “Mercy” on her hand as I quilted it.
As I was quilting a block with a mug, the words ‘tea’ and ‘coffee’, representing our social hour, came to me, and I sewed them. Then I thought how appropriate it would be to use words from the UU covenant, quilted into many of the palms in the quilt. There needed to be a UU chalice, and I was glad the new design was available on-line. I enlarged it and used it, along with ‘UUCE 1998 – 2006’, to capture the years of Carolyn’s tenure.
On a Saturday in April, Linda Sage and I went to George’s to select the binding fabric, which is this delicious striped fabric, using the salient colors of the quilt.
The concept of >Art as a source of our faith< has been presented by Rick Davis to ministerial colleagues and at the business meeting of the PNWD in February. Both groups have given the notion the yes-nod. Next, the idea goes to the UUA Board of Trustees who will consider it. I am glad that Reverend Davis is going through the steps to make this truth official. Let this quilt and the community spirit from which it was gleaned be an inspiration to the creative spark inside of each one of us. Art, like any undertaking: if you can imagine it, you can do it.
Another quilt is planned, using the remaining hands that were submitted, and perhaps a different color scheme. It will be part of the church décor. This quilt meanwhile, will hang in the sanctuary after today, until Carolyn takes it on the next leg of her life’s journey. I invite you all to have a much closer look, and see if you can find your handprint or UU words and little designs quilted in. I hope this quilt is an inspiration for the creative inkling you may have in your body and soul.
Before I present the Many Hands Quilt to Carolyn, I would like those who were involved in making it to stand up. First the Quilt Committee, Martha Osgood, George Carroll and Linda Sage; now the 17 people who basted the layers together; and lastly the folks who gave me photocopies of their hands. Thank you all!
So here you are Carolyn, The Many Hands Quilt is a thank you for the eight years you have lovingly spent with us.
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