thecraftycreek

70273 Project Quilt

Following the Great British Sewing Bee exhibition I read several posts who mentioned the 70273 Project, I’ve never got into ‘protest quilts’ but this one touched me. I was intrigued and started to look into it and decided I wanted to make some quilt blocks for it; so what’s it about…

Jeanne Hewell-Chambers is the lady with the inspiration and the motivation to make it happen. She writes

“Between January 1940 and August 1941 (before the Holocaust began), 70,273 physically and mentally disabled people – men, women, teens, boys, and girls – were murdered by the Nazis. Though they never even laid eyes on the disabled person they were evaluating, the Nazi doctors read the medical files and, if from the words on the page, the person was deemed “unfit” or an “economic burden on society”, the doctor placed a red X at the bottom of the form. Three doctors were to read each medical file, and when two of them made a red X on the page, the disabled person’s fate was sealed. Most were murdered within 1-2 hours.

I will commemorate these 70,273 voiceless, powerless people who were so callously and casually murdered by gathering 70,273 blocks of white fabric (representing innocence and the paper the doctors read), each bearing two red X’s (representing one person), and I will stitch them together into quilts. “

70273 Project Quilt

These quilts are going to exhibitions all around the world, in the meantime Jeanne is asking for quilt blocks with just two simple red crosses on, they can be sewn, drawn with a marker pen, embroidered, anything really, so long as all that is on it is two red crosses. There are three different sizes to make so if you would like to make some too please do have a look at her website here.

October 14th is Global Block Day, the challenge is out to see how many 70273 project blocks can be made in one day. I’ve got some red ribbon ready…

My friend and I aim to do a long distance walk each year, we started about five years ago with the Six Dales walk, which goes from Otley (where I live) up to Middleham in the Yorkshire Dales, crossing six dales during the 38 mile walk. We take these walks at a fairly easy pace of about 10 miles a day. The following year it got a bit longer, 84 miles of the Dales Way from Ilkley (just up the road) to Windermere in the Lakes. During the two years following we did the Bay2Bay walk, this is a walk starting in Grassington (further up Wharfedale) , one year we walked to the east coast to Robin Hoods Bay and the year after we walked west to Barrow in Furness in Cumbria, 100 miles each way, so we have actually walked across Britain!

This year, for various reasons, neither of us was fit enough to manage a long walk, so we decided to do the Lortondale walk in the Lake District. It’s a three day walk, the web site said 10, 7 and 9 miles each day, they would carry all our bags to the next B&B and the best bit…we were provided with a taxi to take us to the top of the first hill!!! That sold it!

It was sunny when we drove up to Keswick so we went the scenic route up through the lakes, rather than whizzing round them on the motorway. It turned out a bit more scenic than we planned as the main road was closed near Keswick so we drove over the Kirkstone Pass to Ullswater, the view from the top of the pass was amazing! You can just make out the road snaking down to Ambleside and Windermere.

The hotel for the first night (and the last) was in a perfect spot in Keswick, overlooking the park, five minutes walk from the lake, this was the view from the dining room window…Catbells!

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