In 2023 Rachel's friend, Torreah "Cookie" Washington, invited her to take part in an exhibit in Charleston, SC called Celebrating Black Mermaids: from Africa to America.
But when Rachel sat down to create a mermaid themed garment for the exhibit she found herself with 'wearable artist's block'. Despite having some interest in mythology, she had never fallen for the mermaids' siren call. But she had a deadline.
Rachel's usual method is to start with an idea for inspiration and then give the ideas form using her garment making and quilting skills. For the mermaid coat, she worked in the other direction. She started with design principles and quilting techniques, and let the mermaid emerge from the idea sea. With the coat taking shape something was still bothering Rachel. In her words, "Mermaids seem to have been put in a box."
Now if you've spent more than 2 minutes with Rachel, you know she doesn't stand for being put into a box. So she gave the garment a name that released her memaid from the box.
"The mermaid isn't just a piece of her environment, she is reflective of her entire environment and the mermaid's entire environment is the whole sea. So the name of this garment is, I am not the Mermaid - I am the Sea."
This coat is made from a collection of water, sea and mermaid themed fabrics. The bodice is hand quilted, the lower section is machine quilted. Whale tales are appliquéd across the bottom of coat. The mermaid herself is adorned with cowrie shell necklace, bracelet and earrings. Her hair is embroidered to give the appearance of braids.
Each year Rachel sells a limited number of the garments that she creates. This year the mermaid coat is one of the garments for sale. If you are interested in purchasing the mermaid coat, please contact Rachel for more details:
Below you'll find several photos of the mermaid coat taken at the recent Pacific International Quilt Festival.
Moving from mermaids to peicing techniques, there are still some spots in Rachel's Introduction to Seminole Technique class that runs consecutive Saturdays August 17 and August 24 from 9am - 12pm Pacific. This is a 100% online class and if your Saturday is booked but you are still interested in adding Seminole Technique to your quilting tool box, the complete video of the class will be available to you for 6 months. If you've already taken Rachel's Seminole Techniques then consider an Advanced Seminole Techniques class that begins on August 27.
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