Abstract: 

Designers seldom write elucidating statements about their work other than the ‘stories’ that go into the promotional press.  Here the author describes how her first two quilts were made.  The first was prescribed with a very definite brief - to honor Barack Obama after his first election.  It was exhibited in a massive show of quilts in Baltimore and other venues across the US.  The second just grew in an ‘evolutionary way starting with a small center scrap of embroidery and building organically with other scraps acquired from Nairobi’s used clothing markets.  At each step in the process, new ideas and associations were made leading to a work that may appear planned but was not.  It was this second quilt that won an award from the East African Women’s League for best quilt of a year in 2014.  The processes of designing each quilt is described in detail including its fabrics, colors, forms, history, ideology and meaning