InarticulateQuilter posted: "Included with my mail-in ballot for every election is an "I Voted" sticker and while it's no chaotic spider-robot-humanoid, I've always liked San Diego County's multi-lingual version. Recently, though, I realized that the SD sticker only had 5 languages r"
Included with my mail-in ballot for every election is an "I Voted" sticker and while it's no chaotic spider-robot-humanoid, I've always liked San Diego County's multi-lingual version. Recently, though, I realized that the SD sticker only had 5 languages represented and more than 5 languages are definitely spoken here in America's Finest City.
Which got me thinking - I love piecing letters for quilts. It's my favorite technique. So why not make a word quilt with the English phrase "I voted" translated into even more of the languages spoken in San Diego?
Once I had the idea, I started collecting different languages from the San Diego County Registrar of Voters website, different font styles from Pinterest and Google Fonts, and different red, white and blue fabrics from my stash, resulting in San Diego Suffrage.
SAN DIEGO SUFFRAGE Completed 2024 Multiple Pieced Fonts 64″ x 80″
The Registrar wasn't my only source of languages spoken by San Diego voters. Because I was creating this quilt on unceded Kumeyaay land, I made sure Kumeyaay was included. Russian made this list because I overheard a couple speaking it while shopping at an outlet mall in North County years ago. Little Italy inspired Italian, our Greek friends inspired Greek. Several of the International Houses at Balboa Park are included as are languages taught at UCSD. I even added a few after reading about the restoration of a multi-language Peace Pole at a local park.
In the end, I chose 24 different languages, creating a separate font for each. Each font was drafted on graph paper prior to cutting out the fabric for the letters, which was especially helpful with curved characters. Because of those curves, I'm extremely proud of figuring out how to piece Persian, Japanese and Hindi, but every alphabet included is different and all of them are pieced, with one exception. Because I wanted Braille to be readable, that block is machine appliqué so the difference between the dots and the background can be easily felt.
Quite a few native speakers helped me with translations after posting about this project on my Mastodon account - a user in Germany even pointed out that my first attempt, while fine, wouldn't be the way the average German voter would say they'd voted, so that block got redone. Multilingual "I Voted" stickers from other US counties and states filled in a few blanks, and where I had to use Google Translate, I doubled checked on other translation websites. I learned that not every language uses a direct translation of "I voted". Some say "I picked" or "I chose." Researching all these different expressions was fascinating!
I did purchase backing fabric from Benartex's Your Vote Counts line, but, as I mentioned, all the other fabrics for this quilt came from my stash (some of which have been in there since Bush v Gore!) The teal-ish blue color of Your Vote Counts livened up what would have been a typical patriotic red, white and blue color scheme and allowed me to use some lighter reds and blues as contrasting pops.
With regard the quilting, I wanted something that wouldn't overwhelm the busy letters - a simple edge-2-edge chevron done with rulers turned out to be the best choice. This was the first quilt I was able to use Red E Edge Snappers on (I received a set as a holiday gift this year.) These side clamps were specially designed for holding backing taut on a longarm, so you don't get tucks or wavy edges. They are a bit finicky to attach, but once on, they really did work well and I would recommend them to other longarm users, for sure.
Even before starting this quilt, I knew it wasn't one I wanted to keep for my personal collection. My hope was to donate it to a local get out the vote effort, either for display at GOTV events or to be raffled off. There's a San Diego Change Begins with Me chapter of Indivisible that I've been getting newsletters from for a while (that is where I first heard about the Peace Pole which inspired a few of the included languages.) I figured it couldn't hurt to ask if they were interested - and they were! The organization is going to sell raffle tickets at various voter registration events and present it to the winner at the Peace Pole re-dedication ceremony in May. It feels like kismet!
San Diego Suffrage is one of the most detailed quilts I've ever made, but I loved every minute of creating it. I really hope it ends up helping the GOTV cause here in San Diego. And just to move the needle a bit more (almost a sewing pun :D) if you are local to San Diego County, I urge you to register to vote at
Included with my mail-in ballot for every election is an "I Voted" sticker and while it's no 
I did purchase backing fabric from Benartex's Your Vote Counts line, but, as I mentioned, all the other fabrics for this quilt came from my stash (some of which have been in there since Bush v Gore!) The teal-ish blue color of Your Vote Counts livened up what would have been a typical patriotic red, white and blue color scheme and allowed me to use some lighter reds and blues as contrasting pops.
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