I Made The AI Quilter’s “Mrs. Banks (2024)” To Help Me Remember Why My Vote Counts
A Guest Post for The AI Quilter, by Cindy Olsen
I came to the Mrs. Banks (2024) Quilt Builder Pattern Bundle the way I come to most things that matter: through someone else’s words that stopped me cold.
I’d been reading Theresa’s blog post, “Mrs. Banks: Quilts and the Power of Women’s Voices,” and something in it lodged itself in my chest. The connection between quilting and suffrage. The reminder that individual pieces — and individual voices — come together to create something that none of them could be alone. And the frank acknowledgment (even before the 2020 election happened) that the fight isn’t over. Not even close.
I bought the pattern before I finished reading.
The Pattern Itself
If you’re on the fence about doing one of Theresa’s patterns, I’ll be plain: the directions are clear and precise, with generous examples and references throughout to make sure you understand what you’re doing and why. I hadn’t attempted a collage quilt anywhere near this intricate before, and I didn’t feel abandoned at any point in the process.
That said — intricate is the right word. The block is built using Theresa’s Fractured Appliqué technique, which means a lot of pieces, many of them small, all of them needing to be fused, placed, and ultimately secured through quilting. The Lite Steam a Seam 2 is your friend here, but let me save you from one of my early missteps: do not iron the adhesive side of the LSAS2. (I discovered this the hard way.) Thankfully I caught it, regrouped, and got back on track. Theresa’s instructions do address this — but in the early enthusiasm of starting a new project, it’s exactly the kind of thing you can breeze past. Slow down. Read twice. Iron once (on the right side).
Making Mrs. Banks My Own
To make Mrs. Banks an expression of me, the obvious place was to start with the fabrics in my stash. (I live in rural Tennessee, and while they exist, I only have a couple of LQSs, and have you seen the price of gas?!?! Or new quilt fabric? I’m always up for a good stash enhancing trip, but this wasn’t one of those times.) The customizable paint palettes provided in the bundle were genuinely useful, because the hardest part of this entire project for me wasn’t the technique — it was committing to my fabric choices.
I wanted something patriotic, but not overtly so. No flags, no loud declarations. I landed on muted reds and blues — a starry navy, a burgundy plaid, a soft rosy floral — with accent colors woven in that felt personal to me. The grayscale base in the pattern was essential for getting the values right even when my fabric choices were unconventional. I could trust the structure of the pattern while still making the piece genuinely mine.
The Quilting: Making Her Speak
Once I got her fused together there were more choices to make.
With so many small pieces, the quilting needed to be dense enough to ensure everything was fully tacked down. For Mrs. Banks, I did dense quilting in a neutral color to ensure all the pieces stayed down without being too obvious. Then for the background, I chose contour quilting that echoes the shape of the figure outward in concentric lines, which both solved the practical problem and gave the finished piece a sense of weight and presence, like she’s emanating something.
But I had another challenge: I’m Generation Jones (the end of Boomers, but before Gen X), so Mrs. Banks is immediately recognizable to me. The prim Edwardian silhouette, the sash, that hat — I see her and I think Mary Poppins and I think votes for women in the same breath. What I discovered is that a surprising number of people, particularly younger quilters, don’t make that connection. They see a striking geometric figure but they don’t know her name or her history.
So I added it to the quilting itself. Right there in the background above her head, stitched into the contour lines: vote.
Not a shout. A statement. Clear enough to give viewers the key they need to unlock who she is and why she matters.
Why She Matters Right Now
The suffragettes fought for something we have been taught to treat as permanent. If you follow the news even a little bit, you know that it isn’t.
Women (especially married women who have taken their spouse’s name like so many of my generation) may face real, present-day hurdles when it comes to exercising the right to vote. The president has refused to sign another bill until Congress passes the SAVE America act. They call it a voter ID law—which we can all agree that Voter ID laws are good. BUT they don’t account for name changes after marriage, after adoption, after legal proceedings. Bureaucratic friction that falls disproportionately on women and the poor. People who have, in the eyes of some systems, technically become someone new. And it will cost money for the privilege to register, up to $165 or more for a passport. And may take weeks. The registration date for my next election on May 5 was April 6. If I just moved here, I wouldn’t be able to vote, even though I am a legally born citizen.
Even more concerning is that many of the constitutional right of states to run the elections become Federal. States would have to turn over all voter rolls and data (in some states that includes party and voting record) to the Federal government, and the Federal government would tell the states who to purge on their voting lists on a monthly basis. The problem? The database that tells them who to purge has shown to be incorrect up to 50% of the time. Would you trust a sewing machine that doesn’t sew 50% of the time to make your most sacred quilts? I would not. And I certainly don’t want that to happen with my voting rights. So the irony, given who Mrs. Banks is, is not lost on me.
And the broader context matters too. When executive power expands unchecked — when the balance between branches of government tilts — history tells us who absorbs the cost first. It is not the powerful.
So here is my practical ask, sewn right alongside the quilting one: check your voter registration today, and again if the SAVE America act passes. Does the name match your ID exactly? If you’ve changed your name for any reason, update your registration before your state’s deadline. Visit vote.gov — it takes less time than pressing a single appliqué piece into place.
And please: vote in the primaries, not just the November midterms. The primary is where you have the most influence over who ends up on that final ballot. Nobody on any ballot will be a perfect candidate — I’ve never met one and neither have you — but the primaries are your best chance to put forward someone who comes closest to representing your values. Don’t cede that ground.
If you want to know what values I’m looking for in a candidate, I find a lot of alignment with Theresa’s perspective at The AI Quilter. I won’t tell you who to vote for — that’s your decision — but I will tell you to go find out who’s running in your district before someone else decides for you.
What Mrs. Banks Taught Me
When I stepped back and looked at my finished piece — a fractured, muted, patriotic figure surrounded by contour lines, the word votes stitched quietly above her — I felt what I imagine Theresa intended quilters to feel when she designed this: that making something beautiful and making something meaningful are not separate acts. They can be the same act, executed one stitch at a time.
The women who marched and argued and were arrested and kept going so that I could mark a ballot did not have the luxury of treating that right as guaranteed. Neither do we, it turns out.
Quilt for change. And then go vote for it.
AI is Here. But What Does it Mean for Creativity?
If you’ve ever wondered “Is AI going to replace real art?” you’re not alone. Many creatives feel curious but cautious.
The truth? AI is a tool, not a threat. But only if you understand how it works, its potential for good and harm, and how to use it ethically and with intention.
You don’t have to dive in blindly.
You can learn the landscape, explore the possibilities, and stay firmly in control of your creative voice — while adding more speed, variety, and inspiration to your process.