‘Our World’ Quilt on Display Beginning This Sunday
As she witnessed what she considered injustice, hatred, and cruelty toward people who were different during the 2016 presidential campaign, Marie Bachman pondered what she could do to communicate a different message. She decided to let her fingers do the talking.
Over the next two-and-a-half years she embarked on an odyssey to collect fabrics and materials from the world’s 195 independent countries spread over six continents. She then used her sewing skills to create an 82-inch square “Our World” quilt to demonstrate “that all people and cultures can live in peace and harmony with each other.”
“I want people to understand that it is beneficial for all of us if we learn to live in peace and harmony with each other,” says Marie, “instead of division and separation.”
Her beautiful artwork will be on display in the church’s Gathering Place beginning this Sunday, along with documentation notebooks providing the backstory of the creation of the quilt and the materials used.
Marie’s quilt has been on display at various places since 2018, including at Brethren Village Chapel; at the Church of the Brethren’s National Older Adult Conference, where Marie also gave a presentation on the quilt and its message; and twice at our church’s annual International Fun Day.
Marie began quilting in 2000 when, looking toward retirement, she decided she needed a new hobby. She connected with a quilting guild in Tallahassee, Florida, where she and husband, Greg, lived at the time, and learned from friends there and on her own. Since then, she has created dozens of quilts and wall hangings. “I tend to do things and give them away as gifts,” she says.
These days many of her smaller works—including baby quilts, hot pads and child crayon activity bags—are sold in the Brethren Village store.
Learn more about the quilt by reading Marie’s Artist Statement and this document that tells more of the story.