Nelson Mandela at the 'Unfolding Stories' exhibition

I started a new quilt last week for the upcoming 'Unfolding Stories' exhibition in the West Barn, Bradford on Avon, from Tuesday 29th September until Sunday 5th October 2014.

It isn't finished yet, but here is how it looks so far. It is a variation on the small 12 x 12 quilt I made last year for the annual challenge at Midsomer Quilting .

This latest version is going to measure 75cm x 100cm, and will use some different techniques, but the overall design is similar to the smaller original.

For this quilt I needed to make some quite large stencils of the figure of Nelson Mandela with his hand raised, as he walked free from prison after 27 years. 

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I used freezer stencils paper and the free software called 'Posterazor' to enlarge the my sketchbook drawing of Nelson Mandela walking to freedom.
I like this software very much - it is simple to use and such a useful tool. Here is a link so you can see what it can do and download it for yourself if you think it might be useful.

Here are the stencils I cut - the largest is approximately 50cm tall and using Posterazor I made the image progressively smaller -  the smallest being 30cm.

I then ironed the cut stencils onto the already quilted fabric. 

I used grey artists acrylic paint and a small piece of sponge to dab onto the quilted surface. I like the way relief of the quilting stops the paint from completely covering the fabric, making a very mottled visual texture on the quilt.

Once the stencil is removed you can see the sillhouete of Nelson Mandela and the quilting is also still visible through the paint.

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The quilt still needs a lot more quilting in the lower section, where I have so far quilted the opening words from the Freedom Charter, a powerful and important document adopted at the Congress of the people in Kliptown, South Africa on June 26th 1955. 


About the Freedom Charter
The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress and its allies the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the Coloured People's Congress. It is characterized by its opening demand; The People Shall Govern!

In 1955, the ANC sent out fifty thousand volunteers countrywide to collect 'freedom demands' from the people of South Africa. This system was designed to give all South Africans equal rights. Demands such as "Land to be given to all landless people", "Living wages and shorter hours of work", "Free and compulsory education, irrespective of colour, race or nationality" were synthesized into the final document by ANC leaders including Z.K. Mathews and Lionel 'Rusty' Bernstein.

The Charter was officially adopted on June 26, 1955 at a Congress of the People in Kliptown. The meeting was attended by roughly three thousand delegates but was broken up by police on the second day, although by then the charter had been read in full. The crowd had shouted its approval of each section with cries of 'Afrika!' and 'Mayibuye!'

The document is notable for its demand for and commitment to a non-racial South Africa, this remains the platform of the ANC. The charter also calls for democracy and human rights, land reform, labour rights, and nationalization. After the congress was denounced as treason by the South African government. The ANC was banned and 156 activists were arrested, including Nelson Mandela who was first imprisoned in 1962. However, the charter continued to circulate in the underground and inspired a generations of young militants.

On February 11 1990, Nelson Mandela was finally freed and the ANC came to power after the first democratic elections were held in South Africa in April 1994. The new Constitution of South Africa included in its text many of the demands called for in the Freedom Charter. Nearly all the enumerated concerns regarding equality of race and language were directly addressed in the constitution, although the document included nothing to the effect of the nationalization of industry or redistribution of land, both of which were specifically outlined in the charter.