In a Month of Sundays

I don't know if "idle hands are the devil's workshop" but I do know that I like to keep my hands busy. Thus I sew, I knit, I make jewelry, I create. Over the past year, I've been working on embroidering squares for a quilt. I was inspired by looking at various vintage "day of the week" tea towel patterns and so I decided to make a quilt of the "Sunday" images. As I was working on the individual squares they became a form of meditation on what "Sunday" has meant historically and what it means to me. These squares lead to a great discussion with all sorts of folks; kids especially love the tangible quality and the appealing images and I've found it a great way to engage them in a discussion of what Sunday means to them.






So, Which square appeals to you? How do you spend Sunday? If you were to design your own square what would it look like?

[I should note that these patterns date from the 1920s to the 1980s and some of them contain the visual stereotypes of their times. When I'm showing the squares to children (the quilt's not finished yet) I leave those out. I thought about not including them at all, but I decided that I wanted to include all of the images because I don't want to cover up the past but challenge myself to examine all the ways Sunday has been exploited as well as the ways it has been celebrated. In other words I don't want it to just be warm, or pretty; I want the quilt to make me think.]


Evermore and evermore,


Mary-Lynn