The Quilt Coat Project

If you missed the beginning of this story, you can read part one here and part two here.

And so, after a dream.
After driving 1,400 miles round trip.
After turning an internet friend into a real life one.
After taking a risk.

We started to create.

We are turning a very special stack of found quilts into—COATS.

We believe strongly in only using quilts that have damage or wear that would otherwise have deemed them less collectible or usable.

(We can’t bring ourselves to cut into the good ones...)

Sarah has hand washed each and every one naturally and laid them out in the Alabama sunshine.

We both put in the work of planning and dreaming out each and every quilts new life.

Each will be thoughtfully cut and pieced together to make a heritage piece that is in and of itself a layered work of art.

A story of making something old new again.
A garment that will last your lifetime.

Sarah’s doing the sewing—then we’ll be meeting up to exchange them and I’ll bring them back to Virginia to do the photographing, story telling and listing for you all in a few weeks (they’ll certainly be well traveled and steeped in narrative by then!)

We will have a variety of sizes and lengths, but this will be a small collection for now.
We don’t know where it will lead, but we are enjoying the process and the opportunity to create something together out of a shared passion and love for old textiles.

We’ll be sharing more as these quilt coats are created!

Thank you all for your excitement in this project with us. It’s one of hope and redemption.
You’ve been spurring on two women’s dreams.

And if we’ve learned anything from this project of ours... it’s to listen to the dreams.

A Beautiful Unfolding

If you missed part one of this story, you can read it here.

This is my friend Sarah (also known as @potters.daughter on Instagram).
Between us is a stack of quilts that we spent the better part of a month finding and rescuing all over the deep South. Most of these were found on my way to meet Sarah actually. That’s right—we’d never met in person until this day. Until this moment we were, as they say, just Instagram friends. But a dream Sarah had— not even three weeks before this photo was taken— led me to driving over 700 miles, with a car full of quilts, to meet her. Because we share a love of projects.
And a love for old textiles. And for not only *seeing* but *sharing* the beauty of imperfect and cast-off things and believing in their ability to still have life left to live. Additionally, we recognize that there is a lot of beauty to be found in partnering with someone to create something.

As much as you may want to do and create and be all of the things all by your lonesome, there is a special kind of magic that comes in choosing to join together with someone to share in the creation of a work of art.

That’s what this story is about... Collaboration.

But not in the millennial sense of the word. A surface level, here’s-a-thing-created-by-one-person-and-sponsored-by-another.

But a true equal partnership of deep exploration into the possibilities of the unknown and working together side by side in equal standing. To create something that feels layered and meaningful. To trust in the divine and in something bigger than ourselves.

I hope you’ll stay tuned as we keep unfolding the rest of this journey.

(I wasn’t trying to make a pun, you know, with quilts and all, but I kind of feel as though that’s a good title for this chapter of this story: A Beautiful Unfolding.)