Saturday, October 27, 2012

Week 9 - Brick Pavement: March on Washington

The block this week commemorates the March on Washington of March 3rd, 1913, the eve of President Wilson's inauguration.  Alice Paul, whose ratification banner we honored two weeks ago, organized this dramatic event. More than five thousand women participated in the march - but you can read more about what happened and the importance of the march in this Library of Congress article:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/aw01e/aw01e.html


With green and gold, I don't have "bricks" but I was thinking of building materials in Washington as I chose my fabrics. I wanted a stripe for the long "pavers," and nothing I had was the color and scale I had in mind - so I pieced a striped fabric with a mottled green that, in this context, seems like marble.  The fabric with circles on yellow reminded me of tiles. Perhaps I wanted to use this fabric here because I'm reading Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Anthony Shadid's House of Stone. The book tells his story of fixing up his great-grandfather's house in southern Lebanon.  Finding and installing the cemento tile that belonged to the era is an important part of the renovation.  Here's a link to a YouTube video featuring the author talking about the tiles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGkLExNKXsc
Sadly, he died earlier this year, only 43 years old. 

2 comments:

Sherrye said...

Now that you've given me YOUR side of the story on what the fabrics mean, I can definitely see tiles, and they look very European to me...something ornate that would have been used during the Renaissance....but isn't that what we are doing here...

RENEWing life for women as equal citizens? There is so much meaning tied up in this quilt.

Dorry said...

That's a great fabric motif you have there in the three squares and all in all a very successful block. Your blog makes for such an interesting read with each weekly block.