Quilts have long been used to tell stories, sometimes outright, many times hidden. From the quilts that shared the path of the Underground Railroad during the American Civil War to the Aids Memorial Quilt that honors the lives of those lost to HIV/AIDs, quilts tell stories of love and hope. Not just art, quilts also help keep us warm, are gifts passed down by generation, and are labors of love. Design to me is many of these same things: storytelling, seeing non-obvious connections, and connecting the past to the future. It’s hard work. In Love Quilt, I hope to honor and embody those principles.
What may appear as a series of colorful squares reveals a hidden map when scanned with your phone. Scale up a QR code and it becomes a series of patches, scale down a quilt and it becomes a pattern of pixels. Scan Love Quilt and you will be transported to a world of love stories across time and space. Stories of romance, of friendship, of family, of love playful to everlasting, and of love for the world-humanity, the earth, and things bigger than ourselves; each color a different kind of love, each block a different story. Over the last two weeks, I’ve gathered these stories from friends and family, and I hope it continues to grow.
This project was part of the Graduate program in Design at Stanford for a project called Personal Statements. I have been looking forward to this event since I began my Masters at the d.school at Stanford. This two week long sprint gives each second year the freedom to make any artistic statement they want to capture their perspective on design. It highlights the uniqueness of each member of our 14 person cohort. I thought of the idea for this project on December 17, 2024 and bought the material to make the quilt on January 3rd. When I got home and laid out the fabric, I was daunted by the task of making a quilt in two weeks. It was the biggest textile project I’ve done and my first quilt, but every time I doubted the QR code would scan or was sick of sewing, I read through and added the love stories that I had been gathering. The stories made me laugh, made me cry, made me reach out to old friends, and kept me motivated to continue and finish the project. During the showcase on January 17, attendees scanned the quilt and were brought to the map that you all helped create. They also had the opportunity to write their own stories, which I’ve since added to the map.
Check out the Love Quilt Map below:
I plan to continue to work on this project and hope that through small acts of kindness and vulnerability, we are able to add a bit more love to the world. Add your own story at tinyurl.com/LoveQuiltStories.
