Community Quilt

Photo Jamie Cruickshank

This large community quilt, 16'high x 6'wide, is a project which Moon Rain Centre directed for the Canadian Tulip Festival.

The project was designed and directed by Gabby Ewen, who is project co-ordinator for Moon Rain Centre. Textile artists, Owen Tuf, Phyllis Wedding, Jocelyne Ladouceur, Andie Haltrich and Thoma Ewen, artistic director of Moon Rain Centre, all assisted on the quilt project.

Community participants and visitors to the Canadian Tulip Festival wrote messages of peace and friendship onto ribbons that were appliqued to make the tulip flower, stem and leaves. One message I found significant is, "peace is not a solo activity". The signatures of participants are on the green rectangles that make the border. This is part of Moon Rain Centre's large "Vision Weave Project". www.visionweaveproject.blogspot.com

The Canadian Tulip Festival, now in it's 59th year, commemorates Holland's gift of tulip bulbs as thanks for Canada's hospitality to the Dutch Royal Family during the Second World War.

The Quilt was made on site at the festival in Major's Hill Park in Ottawa in

May 2011.
It has now been delivered to the Canadian Tulip Festival offices in Ottawa.

Photographs of The Kaleidoscope Community Quilt Project in progress

This project is progressing so amazingly. To see some of the photographs of the community quilt please follow the link to the Canadaian Tulip Festival website.

http://www.tulipfestival.ca/gallery/?album=6&gallery=6

Volunteers Invited to Participate in Kaleidoscope Quilt Project, Canadian Tulip Festival

The Kaleidoscope Community Quilt Project

May 6 to 23, 2011

The Kaleidoscope Quilt is the Canadian Tulip Festival's visual celebration of Peace and Friendship through Colours, Culture and Community.This unique piece of textile art will be created by the Canadian Tulip Festival's 25,000 community members, in partnership with Moon Rain Centre (www.moonrain.ca) and the direction of textile artist Gabby Ewen.

The Kaleidoscope Quilt will be created using appliqué, crazy quilting and contemporary textile techniques, working with satin ribbons which will be hand-sewn into the image of a radiant tulip in full bloom with a
background of brilliantly coloured fabric diamonds pieced, embroidered along the seams in the crazy quilt style and embellished to form a radiating kaleidoscopic image.

The Kaleidoscope Community Quilt Project is a hands-on intercultural, intergenerational participatory art activity that will be set up on the festival site for the duration of the Canadian Tulip Festival.
Participants are invited to personalize a piece of fabric or ribbon by contributing a positive message of Peace and Friendship.

Messages of Peace and Friendship will be recorded and displayed, and all participants will be invited to sign, along the border of the quilt. The incorporation of these signatures into the art piece creates an active "living" record of all the community contributors and attests to the iconic quality of this legacy project.


The Canadian Tulip Festival is seeking skilled individuals to facilitate the hands-on creation as well as the integration of members of the public into this exciting large scale community quilt project.

For more information please e-mail..
workshops@tulipfestival.ca

The Vision Weave Project

Vision Weave is an interactive community arts project that integrates fibre arts, text messages and community visioning in the creation of woven public art.

In Vision Weave, each community participant is given a strip of fabric on which they write their message or vision for a peaceful future and then interweave it into a collective tapestry.

info@moonrain.ca     http://www.moonrain.ca/   visionweaveproject@gmail.com