She will
set it down again. But the next person to pick up Rita Smith’s
meticulously prepared project, bundled together in a Tupperware box,
will be a stranger, some decades later. Shannon Downey will find it at
an estate sale in a home in Mount Prospect, Illinois, after Rita’s death
at the age of 99.
“There was a vintage embroidery hoop - they don’t make them
like that any more. Then I noticed there was a picture inside it - the
outline of New Jersey. I went through the [container], and realised
‘this is a project’”.
Rita had prepared the hexagons by
cutting up pieces of bedsheet and transferring designs on them, ready to
be embroidered, but had only stitched two of the states. She had
started on a third.
A school nurse, Rita may have started on the quilt 20 or even 30 years ago, believes Bill, one of her sons.
He
told Shannon that the project was then probably abandoned several years
ago when his father became seriously ill and she began caring for him.
Shannon,
who uses craft to promote social and political activism, always tries
to complete unfinished projects she comes across which have been started
by someone who has died. “I feel like I’m doing something to make sure
their soul is resting,” she says.
But on this occasion the project was far too big for her to manage alone.
She
asked for help on Instagram. What happened next took her by surprise.
Within 24 hours more than 1,000 volunteers came forward, far more than
she needed. She chose 100 embroiderers living all over the US to sew the
hexagons - some wanted to represent their own state, others just wanted
to be part of the enormous endeavour. Some 30 women, mostly local to
Chicago, then gathered for the sewing together of the hexagons to make
the quilt.
