Beadlust

Quilting & Spirit Dolls

Unite the World...

Well, maybe "the world" is a bit of an exaggeration... yet I've seen it again and again... how beading, quilting and doll making do unite (mostly women) from many cultures and countries. Here's my example for the day!

Patsy and Sandy, two quilters from Georgia began an exchange with quilters in Japan in 1996 when they were involved with the Georgia Quilt Project, which recruited quilters to make two quilts for each country participating in the Olympics. (There's even a book which shows all 400 quilts made for the project: Olympics Quilts). Because of this, quilters from Japan did the same thing when the Olympics were in Nagano. Several of the Georgia women and several of the Japanese women met through this project and, over time, began a regular exchange. Recently they all got together in Georgia at Sandy's house.




Sandy had just celebrated her birthday, and Patsy had just made the above spirit doll for her. The Japanese ladies saw the doll, and "fell in love" with it! Patsy writes: "Well, as you can imagine, it's hard to entertain when you can't communicate well, and we were running out of things for these ladies to see and do. So Sandy asked me to come over and show them how to make the dolls. Turned out to be a great thing for all. We had a carry-in-dinner with a few more quilter friends in our area, and I took more of my dolls to show. I turned out to be their "super star"! What a treat! They gave us all gifts of Japanese fabrics and patterns, and it was a really nice experience."

I'm trying to upload a picture of the Japanese ladies and the back of the doll Patsy made for Sandy, but they won't load. So I'll start another post ....