Columbia Park resident Karen Bartig has two quilts that will be part of the upcoming Voices in Cloth event held in the San Francisco Bay area on March 26-27. The event showcases quilts with different designs, themes, symbolism, and most of all – the hard work it takes to fully complete them.
For Bartig, her desire to complete the quilts began when she decided to move back to Minnesota after spending several years in the Berkeley area attending Pacific Basin School of Textile Arts and working at the University of California – Berkeley Survey Research Center.
“I had been living in Berkeley for 11 years and made a lot of friends,” said Bartig. “Before I came back to Minnesota, I gave my friends and co-workers a pattern and asked them to make a square that would remind me of my time in California.”
The two quilts Bartig designed are based on the 19th century tradition of a friendship quilt. Friendship quilts signified weddings or moves and contained squares designed by friends and family often signed by either indelible ink, or embellished with embroidery. As families moved west, these unique quilts were often presented when the move date arrived. As Bartig herself moved back west, the idea of the friendship quilt held significance.
Although Bartig wanted to complete the quilts in 1993, they remained unfinished until Bartig found time during the pandemic in 2021. She was inspired after a friend, who provided a square for the quilt and encouraged her to finish it, died from a brain tumor shortly after Bartig visited three years ago.
The companion friendship quilts contain squares from at least 40 of Bartig’s friends and colleagues she met while living in California. Many of the squares contain fabrics designed, dyed, and printed by her friends. She says having the quilts in this upcoming show will allow many who contributed squares to see the completed project.
“I have been reaching out to some of the people who have squares in the quilts telling them they [quilts] are done now and are coming back to California,” said Bartig. “They are beautiful quilts, and they have lots of memories.”
Once Bartig receives the companion quilts back after the upcoming show, she plans to enter one friendship quilt along with a newer project into the Minnesota Quilters Inc. show this summer.
When Bartig is not quilting, she and her spouse, Gary, have a full-time business that operates out of their home. Gary, a luthier, builds and repairs stringed instruments. He designed and created a smaller portable upright bass and a five-stringed violin they sell world-wide.
The “Voices in Cloth” show is scheduled in the Bay Area of California on March 26-27 and is presented by the East Bay Heritage Quilters. For more information on this event: http://www.ebhq.org
Below: Karen Bartig works to finish her friendship quilt. One of two friendship quilts designed by Bartig and her friends in California. Both are based on a traditional pattern called the “evening star.” (Provided photos)
