In June, Missouri Humanities launched Stitched Together, an interactive digital-to-physical fundraising campaign designed to highlight the common threads that connect Missouri’s communities across the state. As part of the initiative, Missouri Humanities has commissioned local quilter Kristen Edens of Arnold, Missouri, to handcraft two custom quilts celebrating Missouri’s history, landscapes, and community spirit.
A Craft Stitched in History
Kristen began quilting in the late 1990’s as a creative outlet for stress relief. What started as a hobby carried her through career changes, the 2008 recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic. While the world’s landscape continuously shifted, creating quilts remained a constant. And today, quilting has become her full-time pursuit. Working from her studio in Arnold, she restores antique quilts, creates custom t-shirt memory quilts, and designs modern art pieces.
Kristen’s background brings a historian’s perspective to her craft. As a member of the American Quilt Study Group, she approaches quiltmaking as an art form and also as a way of preserving stories.
“Quilts serve as historical records that preserve stories across generations,” Kristen said. “Joining the American Quilt Study Group allowed me to blend my love for history with a timeless art form.”
For Stitched Together, Kristen is collaborating with Missouri Humanities to handcraft two companion quilts based on the design of the digital community quilt.
- The first quilt will become an institutional heirloom, kept by Missouri Humanities to document the campaign.
- The second quilt will be raffled off to a community supporter who donates to the initiative.
Drawing on traditional and modern block layouts, Kristen is designing each quilt to reflect Missouri’s rich history, landscapes, and community spirit, turning a statewide digital campaign into a tangible, handcrafted legacy.
How It Works
Stitched Together invites Missourians to support vital public humanities programs, including literacy initiatives, veteran writing workshops, and local history preservation, through an online giving campaign. Donors who contribute are invited to customize a virtual quilt patch, visually showing their support alongside the support of others across the state. That collective online effort is then translated into two real, hand-sewn quilts crafted by Kristen in her Missouri studio.
What makes this campaign unique is turning that online community effort into two real-life, hand-crafted quilts made right here in Missouri
Get Involved
Missourians can visit mohumanities.org/quilt to make a contribution to the campaign. Every donation directly supports local programs that promote history, storytelling, and culture across the state, and every donor is automatically entered into a raffle for the chance to win Kristen’s handcrafted quilt.
To learn more about Kristen and the work she does, visit creatingquilts.com or visit her facebook page www.facebook.com/EdensHeirlooms.
