liberty (of london) and justice for all

Without further ado, here is my entry for the NYC Mod Quilt Guild DWR Challenge {traditional category}.

Massive thanks to Amanda for helping me get these (much-improved) photos :)  AND for sharing her gray lipari F8s :o)

I actually used the EZ templates and I have to say they made this challenging design quite approachable (…and then I went and overcomplicated things by swapping the squares for 96-piece ~4" diamonds).

Simple ¼" quilting with Aurifil. (I'm waiting for AW's sewdown Nashville session before attempting anything more daring.)

The arcs are pieced entirely from Liberty of London {tana lawn} fabric (each hue represents one of the eight stripes in Gilbert Baker's original 1978 pride flag design).  And quite serendipitously, this awareness campaign was circling the streets of London during our fabric excursion to Liberty and Shaukat in September:

The background is a variety of Oakshott and text prints (but because I wanted to very much be in control of what that text was saying, I opted for fabric printed with the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln's ever-still-relevant Gettysburg address (I, too, believe Goodwin got it right.  Edited to note:  Turns out others, including the President, agree.)).

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. . . . 
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. . . ."

I want to add that if you disagree with or question the inspiration for this quilt, I would encourage you (as no doubt my former Law & Social Change professor would) to reflect on why it is that you feel and react the way you do.  And to those of you who see the hypocrisy of a diamond-studded quilt being paired with the notion of "liberty and justice for all," I can tell you I struggled for months over whether or not to include the stones.

But I will say that one thing that helped to allay my concerns about the conflict surrounding the diamonds was finding a fabric whose namesake prides himself on ethically sourced materials: Oakshott.

For me, knowing these shimmering gray shades were handwoven by cooperative weavers made the choice to keep the design concept an easy one.

Edited to add photos and this note:  I left out a very important detail when I posted this the other night.  Above all else I want to acknowledge my husband for his support and (enduring) patience when it comes to my creative endeavors.  (And all other impossibly zany facets of my being.)  One might say that the strength of my own marriage was the true seedling for this design.  After all, when you're blessed with the lifelong partnership of someone so remarkably genuine and thoughtful (...in his own forgetful way), it's impossible not to insist on that same opportunity for any other loving couple.

More. 

:)