Block Number

#155

Creator

Katie

Date

2023

Rights

The Euphoria Quilt

Identifier

TEQ-2024-02-109

Transcription

“The home circle pattern is predictive, restrictive, and communicates exclusive protection, borders, nuclear family, a circling of the wagons. 

Traditional quilt patterns like 'home circle' are often only visible as patterns when limited to a bi- or tri-color scheme. As I moved away from the bi-colored and tri-colored blocks I came to love and feel welcomed by the home circle quilt block. 

Perhaps this is why I'm drawn to scrappy quilts - patchwork quilts organized in traditional quilt blocks and made from scraps of fabric. The scrappiness introduces a diverse color and enlivened pattern scheme along with arbitrary fabric placement, breaking the lines of the traditional block along the way. 

It is easy to see our queer chosen families in the metaphors of a quilter's scrap box: discarded pieces, making use of what we have, unexpected combinations, trusting in the journey, something ever changing, clashing fabrics, camp. 

In a scrappy home circle quilt the home circle is no longer what people expect. They want to see the nuclear home, the circling of the wagons.* But in the scrappy version, the home is more nebulous. The color and pattern bleeds across blocks feel like a natural coalescing, collective habitations forming new shapes of home. I can't help but see my chosen family, neighbors, queer kin, stretching out towards each other, across the blocks. 

In honor of this transcendent and disruptive process, 

I propose we rename the scrappy version of the home circle quilt block one of the following: kinship network or chosen kin 

*In this moment of increased discrimination and fear directed towards the LGBTQIA+ community, there are times when I certainly feel the need to circle the queer wagons around our more vulnerable kin.”