Join Fat Quarter Shop as we honor Ruby Bridges and support UNCF with our 2024 Stronger Together Quilt Along. Featuring blocks from four Black designers, we are excited to create a quilt that honors the courage and strength Bridges showed in the years following the monumental case of Brown vs. Board of Education. We love, value, and support the work of UNCF, and we invite you to share in this beautiful quilt along!
About the Quilt
The title “Stronger Together” acknowledges the many Black Americans that have influenced our community. It’s a mission statement to impact our future right now, starting with this fundraiser for United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and highlighting amazing Black quilters. This year’s block designers are Mary Davis, Shereece Nicole, Jeresther Page, and Vickeidy Plybon.
This year’s quilt is designed with the 2024 Stronger Together Designer Bundle of Art Gallery Fabrics solids and basics. If you wish to sew along with other fabrics or floss from your stash, you’ll find the fabric requirements in the pattern!
Join the five-week 2024 Stronger Together Quilt Along from February 1-29. We’ll sew part of the Stronger Together quilt each week, share updates on social media, and share special giveaways each week. The quilt along will follow the pattern instructions, week by week.
UNCF Fundraiser
Fat Quarter Shop is proud to support UNCF with Stronger Together, an annual quilt along fundraiser that has raised over $45,000 for UNCF since 2021. We encourage you to donate $15 to our UNCF campaign for the use of this free pattern! From now through February 29, 2024, 100% of your donation will help underrepresented students earn a college education. Fat Quarter Shop will match up to $5,000 in donations.
The mission of UNCF is to increase the total number of African-American college students and help them persist to graduation. They do this through awarding scholarships, providing financial support to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and advocating for the importance of minority education and community engagement.
About the Designers
Mary Davis is a quilter, pattern designer, and free motion quilting instructor.
You can find Mary on Instagram at (@marygoroundquilts).
Shereece Nicole began to quilt after moving to a new
town in 2010. She joined a local program to learn to
crochet and meet people in her new community. The
program also introduced her to quilting. Shereece is also last year’s Stronger Together designer.
You can follow Shereece Nicole on Instagram (@sewhookedontreasures).
Jeresther Page, a mother and principal with a Master’s
Degree in Education, considers teaching and quilting
her passions. For this year’s Stronger Together quilt,
she designed the School Day Block.
You can follow Jeresther on Instagram (@sew_sweet_seebee).
Vickeidy Plybon is a high school teacher turned
quilter. She comes from a multi-generational family
of sewists and makers and has been quilting steadily
since 2018.
You can find Vickeidy on Instagram (@sewspicious).
Be sure to subscribe to our Fat Quarter Shop YouTube Channel so you don’t miss any of these incredible designers in special livestreams in February during the quilt along!
About Ruby Bridges
In 1960, at the tender age of six, Bridges became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South when she walked through a mob of angry segregationists and into her school. She and her family faced enormous challenges in the fight for school integration.
Ruby Bridges is the chair of the Ruby Bridges Foundation. Established in 1999, the foundation’s primary goal is to promote tolerance, teach the appreciation of differences, and end the effects of racism on children. You can learn more about Ruby Bridges in the Stronger Together 2024 Quilt Pattern and in her book Through My Eyes.
The free pattern includes a short biography highlighting Ruby’s lifelong work as a civil rights activist, with special notes from the designers.
Join us for Stronger Together 2024!
In February, the designers will share their blocks on Instagram, along with chances to win giveaways each week with the hashtag #FQSStrongerTogether2024, so follow them and share your progress to join in!
Right-click the images to download and share on social media, so everyone knows you’ll be sewing along!
Everyone can join in! Simply visit our fundraising page to make a donation, then gather your supplies. Use the hashtag #FQSStrongerTogether2024 on Instagram to see and share work from your fellow quilters.
2 comments
I am excited to start this year’s Stronger together quilt. Ruby Bridges is so inspiring. I am going to change my design a bit, and only use the two modern blocks, to keep with the past years’ more modern designs. I always use modern designers for my Stronger Together quilts, like Ruby Star Society and Free Spirit. I think this year’s quilt is very versatile and I look forward to making it my own.
Ruby such an inspiration. Watching her walk down the stairs at school proud and strong during that turbulent time!
Proud to join this sew-a-Long