family decorate one quilt, and hobbies of music and gardening are represented by a piano and flowers. One of Stenge's most endearing quilts, "The Quilt Show;' depicts thirteen ladies in grey dresses each displaying a different sixinch replica of a full-sized quilt. The border is made up offifty-two different pieced quilt patterns, such as Goose-inthe-Pond, Cactus Basket, and WorldWithout-End. "The Quilt Show" won first prize at three state fairs?' Women today quilt in response to many of the same social and political concerns that inspired quilters of the past. Most recently quilt groups have involved themselves in the quest for peace. The Boise Quilt Project has made quilts for peace activists Pete Seeger and Helen Caldicott, and masterminded the National Peace Quilt, a quilt made of squares from all fifty states, outlined with a border of red and white stripes. The quilt, which is on display at The Great American Quilt Festival, is being circulated to members of the United States Senate. To date fifty-five senators have rested "beneath the warmth and weight of our hopes for the future of our children7 words embroidered on the guile The Boise Peace Quilters, in conjunction with a group of women from the Soviet Union, have just completed another quilt which they plan to present to the joint arms negotiators in Geneva. This quilt will become the property of the United Nations, and will be on permanent display in Geneva. A sixty minute documentary, "A Stitch for Time:' directed by Academy Award winner Nigel Nobel, is currently being made at the Boise Peace Quilt Project. This film is scheduled to be aired on PBS stations all over the country next year. Other groups, such as Quilters: Piece for Peace, have made quilts to raise money for peace organizations. This group also displayed one of its quilts at the exhibition of peace quilts in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in May l9852 Still other groups are active on the local level and use the proceeds of their quilting to help their communities. A group of quilters in Taylorsville, California, for example, raised thousands of dollars to restore a 72
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The Townsend Plan Quilt; Mitchell, SD;1940. This unusual quilt commemorates The Townsend Old Age Plan, a grassroots scheme, devised by Dr. Francis E. Townsend, to offer aid to the elderly — and spark the economy — during the Thirties. Townsend suggested the government send $200 every month to each unemployed man and woman over age sixty with the requirement that the money be spent in the next thirty days. The squares on the quilt represent local supporters ofthe plan.