Refugee Hankie Quilt

When I began making my Hankie Quilt last month, I wrote that… “their power was in all the small individual embroideries joining together to becoming something greater.”

Amy left a comment saying that I was “quilting our history.”

The hankies, which are obsolete, are the perfect symbol for the forgotten coming together and finding their voice and power.

I still have a very large collection of hankies and when I thought of making another quilt with them, one in particular came to mind.

It was a single hankie sent to me in an envelope without a name.  There was a slip of paper tucked inside the hand-embroidered blue hankie, stating that it was made by a Vietnamese Refugee in Hong Kong.

Of course, I’m thinking about the people in Minneapolis and other communities around the country coming together to  stand up to ICE and protect their friends and neighbors.   About how the United States is/has been a land of refugees.

So this is how I began my next quilt to be made with vintage hankies.

I did a bit of research about the Hie Ling Chau refugee center in Hong Kong.  And like so many such places it has a dark history, as does the whole Island. But early on,  it was also a place of hope for many people who only passed though and were able to  move on and live better lives.

This is as far as I got today.  It took me some time to get started, to get the feel for this new quilt.