Gathering Loose Threads

Piecing Past and Future Through Quilts

**Image taken at Crocker Museum in Sacramento, CA. In Praise of Afro American Women, 1999 by Dindga McCannon**

If Labor Day was about setting boundaries against the noise of the culture, today is about deciding what we do with our own hands when we reclaim our time.

For nearly two years, I’ve been immersed in studying the paid and unpaid labor of Black American women. I’ve unearthed the archival records of Black women’s clubs across both coasts—sorting through meeting notes, convention agendas, flyers, and proposals from the M.C. Lawton Club in Albany to the Women’s Civic Improvement Club in Sacramento.

This deep dive gave birth to my Myth, Marrow & Market thesis. But as my wife constantly reminds me: I don’t do anything simply. I couldn’t just leave these women’s stories sitting on dusty library shelves. I am turning their stories into poems and plays. I am imagining what they embodied, literally, and drawing it on poster paper. I am making the invisible visible.

In a space where Black women have always been masters and innovators, I kept coming back to the coded instructions sewn into Underground Railroad quilts—proof that our survival has always been engineered through art.

There is a deep, soulful history between Black women and quilts—a legacy of turning scraps into survival, and survival into art.

I didn’t just want to study quilting and incorporate it into my labor research. I needed to construct a quilt with my own hands.

The A.F.R.O. Practice of Quilting

In yesterday’s post, I shared our family’s A.F.R.O. framework for parenting. But A.F.R.O. isn’t just for the kids; it is how I protect my own sanity and creative spirit. Quilting is an A.F.R.O. lifestyle practice in its purest form:

• A – Active Brains & Bodies: The mental geometry of measuring and cutting paired with the physical rhythm of stitching drops my nervous system into a semi-meditative flow state.
• F – Focused Art: It honors ancestral history while giving me space to express raw creativity outside of institutional demands.
• R – Real Experiences: It is a kinesthetic, deeply tactile counterweight to a modern world spent staring at digital screens.
• O – Opportunities to Express: It gives me an opportunity to communicate my deepest maternal love to my daughter without saying anything that freaks her out.

Wrapping Khia in Ancestral Armor

Quilting isn’t a skill that was passed down directly to me by my grandmothers, but it is an ancestral technology I am determined to pass to all four of my children—my sons as well as my daughters.

My initiation begins now. I am crafting a custom travel throw for our oldest daughter, Khia, as she steps into her senior year of high school and prepares to head off to college.

Right now, she has no idea what I’m actually making. I asked her to go down a rabbit hole through her closet and gather any old fabrics or childhood clothes with sentimental value. She’s currently wandering through Wonderland thinking her mothers are putting together a time capsule. I’m letting her puff that hookah for now.

When she leaves the nest, she won’t just take a box of memories—she will carry a physical piece of home with her, woven from the very fabric of her childhood. Something to hold her when I can’t physically be in the room. My goal is to craft a bespoke quilt for each of our four kids as they launch: a handmade, heavy reminder that they are beautifully, intentionally, and wonderfully made.

10 Quilted Panels & The Journey Ahead

It took me a long time to comfortably call myself an artist, and even longer to claim the titles of researcher and historian. Today, I proudly embrace all three.

My desire to make a quilt for Khia gave me an idea. Constructing quilted panels that visually translate body-mapping data and historical concepts from my research into textile art. Turning the Myth & Marrow body-maps into quilted panels feels like a stroke of genius—and frankly, I’m a little annoyed at myself for not making the connection sooner.

Over the coming months, I’ll be exploring techniques like Patchwork, Appliqué, and English Paper Piecing (EPP). I want to go from someone who knows nothing about quilting to someone who can create a quilt, even if it is the simplest one. I’ve found a quilting collective that meets locally once a month. This collective is a group of Black women. I am looking forward to attending an upcoming event and, hopefully, applying for membership. I’m taking you, my readers, with me every step of the way—from supply runs to final stitches. Whether you’re an experienced quilter or an everyday mom tempted to pick up a needle to claim a quiet hour for yourself, I’d love to have you along for the ride.

It’s intimidating, it’s ambitious, and it’s completely necessary. It is my kind of challenge.

What is the #1 item from your childhood (or your kids’ early years) that you refuse to throw away because of the memories attached to it? Drop your sentimental keepsakes in the comments—let’s talk about how we hold onto our stories.