Library Daze

Here is the quilt that the Point Roberts Quilt Group just finished for the Point Roberts Library. We got it up on the wall this week and it seems already to look as if it had always been there. This is of course the second quilt we have hanging in the Community Center and we have in process a second one for the Library.

This library quilt was sort of a long time arriving, partly because it's a very big (wide--almost 10 feet) and heavy piece. The quilt group, which includes about 12 people, is remarkably stable given that people come and go, as they often do here on the Point, for longish periods of time. Folks will be away for the winter or the spring or the summer or, in my case, half of every month, but still we manage to get together every month and keep at one project or another. Our biggest project, perhaps, was the four 'Seasons of Point Roberts' quilts that hang in the great hall of the Lutheran Church.

The Library’s Kris asked us almost 2 years ago, I’d guess, whether we’d be willing to make one or two quilts for the library walls. We said ‘Yes!’ quickly and started in the planning. The 'Four Seasons' quilts and the 'Community Quilt' all involved creating landscapes, and the other quilts we've done for the community were somewhat traditional (the ‘Boat Quilt’, which hangs in the hallway at the Wellness Clinic, or the ‘Lighthouse Quilt’ that used to hang at the Roof House, or the Bird Quilt, which I think is hanging at the local primary school). In this case, we jumped off in an entirely new direction by agreeing to have each of us make a self-portrait with our favorite book. I was pretty much the only group member who’d worked with portraits of that size (18”x24”) and it proved to be more of a problem to fill all that space than people had anticipated.

So we ended up with six quilted self-portraits, each with one (or more) favorite book, and six similarly-sized bookcase blocks that included smaller photographs of other members who had either worked on the quilt or worked on previous group quilts that we had completed. Some of the portraits involve printing photographs on fabric, one of the things that ink jet printers are very good at.

It’s certainly a self-referential piece, a kind of Advertisements for Ourselves, I guess, with all of us grinning--or at least staring--out at the Library visitors and patrons for years to come. But there we are, members of the community who have actually done something for the community, I think. Today, a few of us from the Quilt Group spent the morning, at the request of the Library staff, providing a summer craft program for local kids. A dozen or so kids and their parents came and everyone appeared to be having a very good time making little collage books out of fabric. (One little girl titled her book “I Like Everything.” ) It was a very low key, but very pleasing way to spend a couple of hours. And it reminded me of a funny conversation I had about 18 months ago with a member of a local poker group. The question was whether the Quilt Group was a ‘community group’ or a ‘hobby group.’ His claim was that it was no more a community group than was his poker club. But it occurred to me today that nobody has asked the poker club to come teach the local kids to gamble, or even to play cards.

There will be a reception-like event for “My Favorite Book” in early August. Come and meet us. Better yet, come and meet the quilt.