Black Lives Matter Embroidered Patch

Sometime in the spring of last year, I started this embroidery project. I was thinking of a versatile garment that I could wear anytime, but especially to rallies or celebrations that I might attend. The summer of 2020, Cedar Rapids had many such events for the purpose of police accountability, and the organizers were successful, leading to the creation of a civilian review board for Cedar Rapids police. Read about Advocates for Social Justice on their website: https://www.asjblm.org/

I used a piece of Robert Kaufman Essex Linen, a linen-cotton blend, that I already had, and I purchased the Levi's vest secondhand from Poshmark specifically for this project.

There are a lot of elements included in the design and I would like to explain them! Several motifs come from quilting. You can see in three of the corners partial quilt stars. Because I want to celebrate the incredible artwork of Black quilters in America, I also turned to African American quilts for inspiration from this book, Signs & Symbols: African Images in African American Quilts by Maude Southwell Wahlman. 

This corner element was inspired by the gorgeous applique border in the quilt below, by an unknown maker. The description calls it a marriage quilt, from Virginia, 1865.

The Marriage Quilt, border detail

The Marriage Quilt, 1865

The orange-flowered stem in this photo is inspired by the floral applique block below, from the Black Family Album Quilt by Sara Ann Wilson, New Jersey or New York, 1854. Additionally, the pink flower is Iowa state flower--the Prairie Rose. I included this symbol of Iowa because I want to acknowledge the Black population and Black heritage of my state. See the African American Museum of Iowa! https://blackiowa.org/

Quilt detail

Black Family Album Quilt by Sara Ann Wilson, celebrating family life.

The trans flag colors make up the white flower with pink and blue in the center. Black trans women are especially at risk of violence, including transphobia fueled violence. Black trans lives matter.

The points on this partial star are rainbow-striped for LGBTQIA+ folks. They also represent string piecing, which in quilting is a way of using small scraps of fabric. If you combine this star with the white flower, you have all the colors of the Progress Pride Flag, which adds black, brown, blue, pink, and white to the rainbow flag to be inclusive of trans people and people of color.

The black and white checks are a nod to my artist friend Chloë, who sometimes uses this motif in their work. Their instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slow.devotion/

So there it is! A colorful celebration, an act of love, and a prayer. Like I said, I started it last year and finished it today. There were several-months-long gaps between times I worked on it, but it took many, many hours! Embroidery is a low-tech, high-effort way to customize clothing. I hope the effort represents my commitment to resisting white supremacy, doing my part to seek racial justice, and an affirmation of the value of human life.