Where Harriet Powers Found Her Stories

Midweek on this blog, we celebrate “INSPIRATION WEDNESDAY”.

I love sharing things from around the world that inspire my quilts, and especially love it when you share your inspirations with me!!

In continuing with “Harriet Powers” week, I found it interesting to see where she found her inspirations…..

Harriet Powers drew inspiration from many parts of her life — her faith, African heritage, everyday experiences, and the natural world around her. Living in rural Georgia during the late 1800s, Powers used quilts not simply as bed coverings, but as a way to tell stories and preserve ideas that mattered deeply to her.

Her quilts became visual narratives filled with symbolism, memory, and meaning.

One of her greatest sources of inspiration was the Bible. Her famous Bible Quilt…..

…. includes scenes from both the Old and New Testaments, such as Adam and Eve, Jonah and the whale, and the crucifixion of Christ. Powers likely learned many of these stories through oral tradition and church life, since formal education opportunities for formerly enslaved African Americans were extremely limited.

Through fabric and stitching, she transformed familiar biblical lessons into vivid pictures that could teach, inspire, and preserve faith within her community.

Nature and unusual events in the sky also influenced her work. In her Pictorial Quilt…..

….she included astronomical events such as meteor showers and “falling stars,” which she viewed as signs of God’s presence and power. Living close to the land, she carefully observed weather, animals, and celestial events, weaving those observations into her quilts alongside biblical themes. To Harriet, the spiritual and natural worlds were deeply connected.

Perhaps most importantly, Harriet Powers drew inspiration from her own life experience. Having lived through slavery, emancipation, hardship, and poverty, she understood struggle and endurance firsthand. Her quilts reflect resilience, faith, and hope — transforming scraps of cloth into lasting works of art and history.

OH, to create in this way!!!

Tomorrow, we will look a bit at Harriet’s life and how these quilts came to be museum-worthy!!

……………………………………………………………

Daisy Inspired!!

I love daisies…..

They are so fresh and lovely and played a prominent role in my wedding bouquet…

They also inspired this fun art piece that I made 6 years ago for my friend Lyn, who hiked the ENTIRE Appalachian Trail by herself and was given the trail name “Wildflower”!!

And….looking at this reminds/inspires me to make another piece like this. It was SO much fun!!

Are you inspired by a particular flower?

……………………………………………………………

Right Below Your Feet

I was looking back at photos from our 2019 visit to Vienna and came across this fun tile floor…

Originally, it looked complicated, but when I split it into two blocks…

….it became VERY easy to design.

But, if you turn it on point, it becomes MUCH more interesting….

I love taking non-quilt designs and figuring out how to piece them. Too bad I don’t have time to make all of the designs I come up with!!

Do you do this too?

……………………………………………………………

Aquarium Inspiration

This past week, Michael and I drove to Atlanta and took our 3-year-old grandson, Archer, to the Georgia Aquarium. We had SO much fun seeing it through his eyes…..

At one point, he wanted to take some photos and took several along this line….

This photo got me thinking… wouldn’t it be fun to make a quilt with the “aquarium” in the background and silhouettes of onlookers in the foreground?

THEN….

…while cruising Facebook a couple of days later, I found this quilt idea from Nancy Agombar-Grenier…..

This would be the PERFECT solution to the “aquarium” part of the quilt!!

DEFINITELY something to think about in the future!!

So, after a fun day with the fish and dolphins, and lunch at Chick-fil-A, we arrived back at his house….

He definitely does the “relaxed travel” well!!

……………………………………………………………

Is the IHG making a comeback?

For the last 3 years, I have been posting ideas of how to turn this carpet…..

…into a quilt.

And, last year, I finally decided to give up on it COMPLETELY and started using the fabrics for other projects.

BUT THEN…..of course there is a “BUT THEN”…..

I have recently been thinking more about Manadala designs, and started wondering if I could use the circle layout, but instead of using fabrics, quilt mandalas to represent the circles.

I put the photo into “ProCreate” and started layering the circles….