My dear friend, Alice, recently sent me an email about a Wishing Tree. I enjoyed the story so much I asked her if I could share it with all of you – and here it is:
“Three of us book club ladies created a Wishing Tree in the Fox River Park (Waukesha, WI) at the beginning of the Pandemic shelter at home. We asked the public to be part of this public art installation by hanging strips of fabric and paper notes of prayers and wishes onto an old downed tree. It was such a beautiful thing to see and watch as the public added their thoughts and wishes.”
“We have returned the tree back to nature partly because we wanted to avoid doing this task in prime mosquito season. I was going to just throw the stuff away but one of my friends wondered what I could do with the recycled strips. Yes, a perfect chance to make a wall hanging or three wall hangings as memories of the Wishing Tree project.
Alice then sent me this photo of the strips and some thoughts about what to do with them:
“My first thought was to put some raw edged random strips onto a background and then use a fabric marker and write some of the prayers and wishes over the tops of the strips. I could only write on the lighter colored ones. Maybe I should keep the fabric strips in the middle and add the wishes as border wording. Since I am making three different wall hangings, doing them at least two different ways would be an option. I think I want to leave the loose edges on the fabric strips to represent frayed wishes or the “spirit” part of a wish or prayer. There are lots more fabric strips than the one basket in the picture. You know us quilters, fabric is not an issue.”
I am grateful for the friends that joined me on this public art project of Hope and Peace. Now I get to extend that project and make a memory wall hanging for all three of us. This will be a challenge, but a fun one to remember our positive attitudes in a time of great uncertainty and fear.
I am looking forward to any creative artful ideas that you might have for me. Thank You.”
I wrote back and told her I thought her ideas sounded great, while adding a suggestion or two of my own. Recently I sent her another email inquiring as to her progress, and she responded that the strips are still in the basket, and the ideas are marinating (we all get that!). If you have any suggestions to share with her, please add them in a comment to this post.
I promise to share photos of her finished quilts whenever they materialize (pun intended 😊).
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I need to add a PS to last week’s post about my “Puzzled No More” quilt. Our church has begun having live services again, but we are not using hymnals – to keep germs at bay. Thus, when we sing, the words are projected on a screen. This photo is of the image that accompanied the lyrics to “To God be the Glory” many weeks after the quilt was completed!
No puzzle pieces, but there’s definitely a similarity in the path and cross!
What joy 😃!