Week 15 - Centennial: New Zealand's Victory

On September 19, 1893,  the women of New Zealand won the right to vote.  In our history lesson, we saw how the women of New Zealand then carried their success in marches for Women's Rights in Washington DC and London. The centennial block was chosen to recall the 1993 100-year anniversary celebration of New Zealand's "honorable position as the first country to enfranchise all women in all elections."

My block this week thus departs from my Grandmothers' stories to pay tribute to our Kiwi sisters.

 

We have many quilters around the world making these blocks and sharing them in a group on Flickr, but I suspect not many other U.S.-based quilters have the benefit of a collection of fabrics from New Zealand.  I have two pieces of the Kiwi print from my dear friends Dorry and Kerry, sisters who live in the U.S. and New Zealand, respectively. For something like 8 years now, I have been participating with them in an International Round Robin group. Jo, another of the Remarkable Robins was born in New Zealand but now lives in Melbourne.  She sent me the yellow and green floral print. The beautiful golden yellow flower is the Kowhai, New Zealand's unofficial national flower. I was pleased to see that one of the print's motifs was sized to perfectly fit the center of the block.  I could have made the star a more powerful element, but I think I like how joyfully the fruit and flower combination seems to shout its Kiwi heritage more than I need it to be a star.