1996 Olympic Quilt with pins from Atlanta games
We’re Olympics junkies here. We’re glued to Olympic coverage and letting the boys stay up late to watch even though school has started. I love everything about the Olympics: the collective enthusiasm of the world watching a single event all at once and cheering on the athletes, the spectacle of the ceremonies, the stories of persistence and courage. I’m a sucker for all of it.
When the Olympics were in Atlanta, quilters from Georgia en masse turned out and made quilts in droves, and each country received two quilts: one went to the flagbearer, the other to the head Olympic official for that country. I worked on two quilts, one going to El Salvador and the other to Belarus. They are documented in this book: 
The Olympic Games Quilts: America’s Welcome to the World (Olympic Games Quilt).
A group photo of all the quiltmakers is on the back of the book, taken in the rotunda of the Georgia capitol building in Atlanta. It was so hot that day some of the older ladies were passing out, and I was five months pregnant with my first child.
My guild at the time, East Cobb Quilt Guild, had a meeting where we all made an Olympic wall hanging with one star for each of the Olympic rings. I attached all the pins to the quilt and it’s hanging in my powder room, along with lots of other Americana-themed decorating. One pin is special, and wasn’t available to the general public:
Pin given to quilters who made quilts for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games
This pin you couldn’t buy and it was special to me for being a part of the games. I’ll never be an Olympic athlete, but in my own small way I was a part of the games in Atlanta.
It has on it the quilt of leaves that became the symbol for the 1996 Atlanta games, saving us from that horrible initial mascot, Whatizzit.
0 Responses to “Olympic Quilts”