Wisconsin

You need to know a little bit about Ties That Bind Quilt Guide of Washington County to understand our block. This guild was formed almost 30 years ago as the “anti-guild” guild. Our founding mothers had enough of Robert’s Rules of Order and mandatory participation that other guilds required. This guild has no by-laws or officers. We take turns running the meetings. We offer projects and things like block of the month, but participation is optional. We only have two requirements: 1. You have to pay your dues and 2. You have to bring a treat once a year. That’s it. It works for us and we have lots of fun at our unregulated meetings. We are kind of an irreverent group. We have a lot of fun and we laugh a lot.

We began our planning by looking at the image of George Washington. Many of them showed him wearing a tricorn hat. Somehow that led to the idea of a cheesehead also being a tricorn and this is the result. (There may or may not have been some brandy old fashioned being consumed during the planning stage, but I’m not admitting anything.)There were also suggestions that he have a speech bubble with the words “Say Cheese” or “Tell your folks I said hi” (a nod to Wisconsin comedian Charlie Berens). We were uncharacteristically conservative and left that off. Carol Pasprzak did the embroidery and Colleen Terry did the applique.

Washington County, Wisconsin is a suburban area northwest of Milwaukee, Wi. It is comprised of mostly bedroom communities and we couldn’t think of any one thing that it would be known for. There are some dairy farms here and West Bend, the county seat, is known for small kitchen appliances. But we do have lots of Green Bay Packer fans. We would like to think that if George Washington were around today, he might want to catch a Packer game, tailgate have a few brats, a few beers, and some cheese curds. The cherries on the background fabric represent the legend of young George chopping down the cherry tree.

We hope that people get a laugh out of this. We need more laughter in this world.

Colleen Terry