The quickest way to learn about quilts and their beauty is to head to Nairobi National Museum.
Then look for the ‘Art Meets Fabric’ exhibition organised by the Kenya Quilt Guild.
What you’ll find are handcrafted quilts made by members who meet once a month at the Sikh Union in Nairobi.
Kenyans know a lot about knitting, stitching and even crocheting. But they don’t know much about quilting as a craft.
The quickest way to learn about quilts and their beauty is to head to Nairobi National Museum. Then look for the ‘Art Meets Fabric’ exhibition organised by the Kenya Quilt Guild.
What you’ll find are handcrafted quilts made by members who meet once a month at the Sikh Union in Nairobi.
Their quilts fill nearly every inch of the museum’s gallery, displayed primarily as eye-catchy tapestries, many of which can easily pass for beautiful paintings.
Some are stitched with intricate geometric patterns, others with landscapes, wildlife or symbols suffused with meaning, like ‘Gill’s Quilt’. It was made by more than half a dozen women who accompanied Gillian Rebelo a few years back to exhibit their quilts in Canada.
As a way of thanking Ms Rebelo for organising the trip, the women created the giant quilt that displays all sorts of symbols reminiscent of their trip to Ailsa Craig in Ontario.
India exhibition
There are even a few quilts that tell tales of Kenyan history, like one explaining the story of the Lunatic Express, the train that ran from Mombasa through Nairobi all the way to Kampala.
But quilts were originally made to serve as blankets, bed covers or casually draped over a sofa or chair to be opened up and used on cold nights or during rainy season when the weather can chill one to the bone.
According to Robina Adhiambo, one of the four quilting members of the Salama Mamas, a self-help group, quilts can also be used as baby blankets, beautiful place mats and even shawls since their triple-layers of various fabrics, all carefully hand-stitched together, are wonderful windbreakers.
The women are single mothers with children attending the Salama Gachie Community School. Lydia Imisa, Hanna Nekesa, Angeline Nyaur and Robina all were faced with the challenge of finding funds to pay for their children’s school fees.
All that jazz quilted by Dena Dale Crain exhibited at Nairobi Museum. PHOTO | MARGARETTA WA GACHERU | NMG
“I’d been teaching them to sew,” says Dorothy Stockell, the current chairlady of the Kenya Quilt Guild. “But then, after I saw a programme in which Siddi women from India were exhibiting their quilts, I decided they might benefit by learning how to quilt.” Robina says Dorothy’s idea was to teach them to quilt so they could sell them to pay school fees and keep their children in school.
That’s exactly what has happened. All their children are now doing well in school.
Meanwhile, the women will be at the exhibition everyday through March 26 to sell their quilts.
Giraffe quilts
Meanwhile, Ms Rebelo, who’s a former guild chairperson, tells BD Life the art of quilting goes back centuries. However, she admits quilting is relatively new to Kenya since people here tended to wear animal skins, not cotton fabrics.
“Some members combined traditional styles of stitching with Kenyan themes,” adds Dorothy who’s been quilting since she was in her teens.
This year, they created quilts honouring giraffes while last year, they quilted to celebrate elephants.
Members also made a common quilt in which several created a patch on which they traced their hands and then filled that space in with a colourful kitenge scrap.
“Then we stitched the patches together and that is one of our prized quilts,” she adds.
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