In the beginning, there was an idea...

When I attended the National Association of Presbyterian Clergywomen Conference in 2005, the speakers encouraged us to go home to our own presbyteries and decide how we wanted to celebrate the 100th anniversary of ordaining women as deacons, the 75th anniversary ordaining women as elders, the 50th anniversary of ordaining women as clergy. I really wanted to make a quilt using fabric from all the churches, but I thought it would be impossible. However, I still really wanted to do it. When I came home and talked to the women here, they didn't say, “That's too big a project. It will take you away from what we called you here to do.” Instead, they said “How can we help you?” They sorted all the fabric by color, helped me photograph all the squares, and stuffed and mailed 895 thank you notes. The Eastern Oregon Presbyterian Women were delighted to bankroll most of this project. I thank them all.

Blazing Trails

This quilt was my initial idea for the ordination celebration quilt. In it, you see the trunks of three pine trees, and tamarack pine boughs reaching into the picture. In the Blue Mountains, the tamaracks turn bright gold in the fall and shed their needles. I've heard stories from a few early clergywomen, who had to do their daily jobs in dresses, stockings, and high heels. The quilting on the path through the mountains is in the shape of high heel prints.

All the quilts contain many Christian symbols in the fabrics: crosses, churches, fish, seashells, a wreath, butterflies, Easter eggs, a rose, a dove, and an anchor. More details can be seen in the larger scale photos referenced below.

In this quilt there are also llamas from Peru, a Kente cloth pattern, a piece of a stole from the first Hispanic woman ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in the Chicago Presbytery, curtain fabric from Katie Cannon, first African American clergywoman in the PCUSA, and uniform fabric and camouflage bandana fabric from two chaplains in Iraq. The white quilting around the blue border says “Blazing Trails. These three banners are sponsored by Eastern Oregon Presbyterian Women. We are celebration women's ordination anniversaries and giving thanks; Deacons, Elders, Clergywomen.” The designs in the corner are my attempts at the Presbyterian Women symbol, which I have learned is not an easy symbol to machine quilt so small!

View larger photo of "Blazing Trails."

Tending the Flame

The reverse of the "Blazing Trails" quilt has a flame on it inspired by the “Tending the Flame” logo from the Presbyterian Women's design for celebrating the ordination anniversaries for 2005-2006. I pieced part of the quilt backs because I wanted to make sure I used up every fabric square people sent. Some churches sent only one square, and some sent many. I didn't want to leave any out.

View larger photo of "Tending the Flame."

The idea for this quilt came from a remark about the first few clergywomen made by Rev. Eileen Lindner at the National Association of Presbyterian Clergywomen Conference in Princeton. She said “We were slow to build bridges with our racial ethnic sisters and I regret that." Building bridges is a shared goal now. As you look at the quilt, you see the bridge stretching across a river and the bridge's shadow in the water below. The path curves across the bridge and goes into the hills toward the ocean, where there is a city on a hill. The white quilting on the blue border says “Building Bridges. A thousand churches gave these fabric squares in honor of the first women deacons and women elders."

Fabrics are from many countries and every continent. The designs on the corners are corn--a symbol of women's wisdom in several Native American tribes and the gye nyame symbol--and an Akan symbol of God ‘s omnipotence from Ghana. That design was sent to me by Joy Saville, whose church participated in the presbytery project of making banners celebrating 250 years of Presbyterianism in New Jersey. She also sent me fabric from those banners to use in these quilts. Many other churches sent fabric from their banners and paraments.

I used a clapper bridge from Scotland because our Presbyterian heritage is from Scotland, and the clapper design is an easy-to-sew linear block design. The peach color is inspired by freeway overpasses in Albuquerque, New Mexico which are painted adobe color.

Several flamingo fabrics came from Florida, and several of the sky fabrics are from Ragine Bote-Tsheik, the wife of Etienne who is a mission interpreter in the Congo. The shield in the orange-leafed tree is the symbol of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. The first woman ordained in the Evangelical Church in Iran is from a tiny town in our presbytery, and she sent me blue and white fabric from Iran.

I tried to make the inner red border look somewhat transparent. The border gave me a way to use up all the wonderful red and pink fabric I received. On the lower path there is a square with a snippet of the 91st Psalm from a camouflage bandana sent in by a military chaplain.

Jerusalem Cross

The reverse of the "Building Bridges" quilt exhibits a Jerusalem Cross. The square design of the Jerusalem cross can be completed quickly. I put a fish fabric in the center of the cross, because it is a symbol for Jesus. The Greek word for fish, icthys, is an acronym for the Greek words for Jesus Christ, God's Son, and Savior.

View larger photo of "Jerusalem Cross."

The idea for “Opening Doors” came from a remark someone made about the women deacons and elders who opened doors for us clergywomen. Also, a clergywoman from Georgia listened to me as I thought aloud about the idea for a single banner called "Blazing Trails." I asked her what she thought I should include and she said “urban ministry.” As I had never served an urban church, that idea would never have occurred to me, so I was glad I asked. I couldn't figure out how to get a gritty city scene into the mountains I envisioned for "Blazing Trails," I had to think about it for quite a while, until I realized I would have to do three quilts, the last one being a church with skyscrapers in the background (rectangular skyscrapers are especially easy to sew using this quilt piecing technique).

As you look at the quilt you are looking through an open door at the church across the way with one fully open door and one half open. The border quilting reads “Four hundred clergywomen sent in a fabric square to celebrate and remember their ordinations. Barely finished by June 15, 2006 by the grace of God.” (I was on track to finish the quilts in plenty of time for General Assembly, until our church had five funerals and two weddings in six weeks during the spring. I had to keep cleaning the fabric out of our fellowship hall and then putting it out again to continue working on the project.) I was still sewing the quilt the night before General Assembly began on June 15, 2006.

The first immigrant clergywoman ever ordained in the PCUSA, Jemima Ngatia, sent me a scarf from the Women's Presbyterian Council in Nairobi to include in the quilts. Most of the pew fabric came from a mission co-worker in Columbia. The stained glass in the door, including the coins, was made of fabric from the first African-American clergywomen presbytery executive. The stained glass behind the door on the right is saeg-dong fabric from Korea. The shadow of the door came from our church's Lenten black drape that covers our cross on Maundy Thursday. The colored diamonds on the left are from New Orleans, Louisiana, as is the broom handle on the door. Even though churches from Louisiana and Mississippi were recovering from the 2005 hurricanes, they still sent squares, or other people sent fabric for them. The tiny pulpit parament came already pieced that way.

The holes in the quilts (which show up as dark blue squares in the photos) are there because I know women who cannot be ordained. Racial ethnic women seminary graduates have an especially hard time finding calls. I wanted to do something to recognize those women, and to show that we are missing their stories even as we continue to blaze trails, build bridges, and open doors for other women as they answer God's call to serve Jesus Christ in ordained ministry.

Clergy Library

On the reverse of the "Opening Doors" quilt is "Clergy Library." Clergy Library has a beige Biblia Hebraica (Hebrew Bible), a blue Novum Testamentum (Greek New Testament), a red Study Bible, like my Oxford Annotated Study Bible, a dark blue Book of Common Worship, a plaid (like Scottish tartans) Book of Confessions and a turquoise Book of Order. Translating Bible texts feeds my faith, so it was important to me to put in the Greek and Hebrew Bibles.

View larger photo of "Clergy Library ".