Stitches Joined News Today

Sisters in Stitches Joined by the Cloth, a group that’s predominantly women of color, say by making quilts, they hope their family's stories will carry on.

Members of a quilting guild called Sisters in Stitches Joined by the Cloth say they are reclaiming their ancestral history in cloth. And by making quilts, they hope their stories – and their loved ones’ stories – will carry on.

Researching your family tree can provide a feeling of belonging and a sense of identity. But for those Americans whose ancestors were enslaved, searching for their roots can be difficult if not impossible. One group of women honors its ancestors through the art of quilting.

In the hands of Lesyslie Rackard and her sewing sisters, quilts talk. Listen to this story told by The Laundress, a quilt Rackard dedicated to her Auntie Maggie Bell Rackard, a domestic worker who migrated in the early 1940s from Daytona Beach, Florida, to Poughkeepsie, New York. Immortalized in fabric, her aunt stands at the ironing board, wearing a blue dress pieced from a scrap of her favorite house dress. Next to her is a laundry basket and washboard, honoring Lesyslie’s mother, also a...