About
In July 2022 John Cole-Morgan went to South Africa for a holiday and realised while there that the South African Quilt Festival was running in Stellenbosch at the same time as the trip. At this time he had been quilting for 8 years and wanted to go and see the quilt works of his homeland which he left in 2001.
It did not disappoint and John was blown away by not only the talent and kindness of the people at this show but the extra-ordinary quilts made. John, despite being a new quilter and South African, was sadly unaware of the vast and varied skills of the South African quilters at the time of going to that festival but certainly knew of their skills and talents when leaving. After attending the quilt festival in 2022 John was determined to show more about the South African quilting community and to find a way to show case their talents and quilts to the rest of the world.
John in the past had curated a collection of 82 sunset miniature quilts in the name of people who had been affect by cancer. John had the idea of asking the quilters of South Africa to each create a miniature quilt putting their South African Voices into Cloth. And the idea was born. The brief was simple, make a quilt measuring 30cm on its longest side and that was it, make whatever you desired just put your voice into fabric.
The Voices in Cloth – South Africa project was born in late 2023.
As the quilts started to come in the project evolved. The first thing was what were we going to do with the quilts and how were we going to make this into a project to do more for our community? The decision was taken very early on to try and make sure a charity aspect was supported and sadly in South Africa the need for charity is so vast but John wanted to ensure that the charity supported was having an element of stitching as well as supporting the learning of skills.
Three charities were chosen.
The first was a school for underpriveledged children with learning challenges. This school’s name is not included to protect these vulnerable children. These amazing young people have shown such happiness and joy toward stitching that their amazingly tough challenges seem to have been eased with the art of stitching and with ten children submitting their first ever quilts to this exhibition for the world to see.
More information about the school
The second was Thungelimpilo where 40 Zulu women with sadly difficult pasts produce colourful embroidery work in this supported community of women who sadly still face significant challenges, but through their work for Thungelimpilo (which began 5 years ago), the community are flourishing and empowered.
More information about Thungelimpilo
Our third charity is Keiskamma Trust. More information is available about this amazing organization off their own website https://keiskamma.org/
The Keiskamma trust allows artists to be able to live together as a community to create embroidered murals and items to sell as a fair price to provide a living wage for the makers of this work.
More information about Keiskamma
With the three charities now in place and the quilts flowing in, John realised there was a further element that was appearing. The actual voices of the artists. John decided that he wanted to interview as many people as possible about the story behind each of their quilts. How many times have you seen a quilt and thought I wonder who made that? I wonder What that was about? John took on the amazing task to try and interview each and every quilter who took part in the project and succeeded in interviewing over 200 quilters. Many sadly changed their minds about being involved and having their voices included but over 150 interviews and counting are being released daily to share with the world the actual voices of the quilters in this project.
These videos can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlVLDI6n2iHNTPT1giK3ttn4tTlI_MZT0
A total of 361 South African quilters took part in the project with over 369 quilts on their way in March 2025 to Glasgow for the 10th annual Scottish Quilt Show. Over 500 having now been officially donated to the project with many being used and charities supported in its name.
If you would like to donate to our cause please use the link on our Just Giving page:
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/voicesincloth
It is very clear that this project has brought to the fore the pride of a quilting nation and an unprecedented generosity of spirit and the deep true kindness of the amazing quilters of South Africa. John can say without hesitation how deeply proud he is of being South African and being able to say he is forever grateful for everything they have done for this project.