The Community Quilt is a collaborative craft project that started with a simple but important question: ‘What makes you feel at home?’
Common Threads is a year-long community arts programme inspired by the extraordinary textile collection at 575 Wandsworth Road — a home shaped by Khadambi Asalache’s deep love of global craft traditions. The programme explores the connective power of textiles: how cloth carries memory, identity, and cultural heritage across generations.
As one of the artists, I worked with community groups, volunteers and fellow makers to co-create a large-scale Community Quilt that asked a simple but profound question: “What makes you feel at home?”
Through a series of hands-on workshops, we explored block printing, collography, appliqué and embroidery, transforming personal reflections into stitched stories. The resulting quilt becomes an archive of shared belonging and a celebration of creativity rooted in community.
575 Wandsworth Road is a house unlike any other — a sanctuary of hand-carved patterns, rare textiles, and architectural inspirations drawn from Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
In 2023, a volunteer-led research project uncovered the diverse histories behind these textiles, sparking the creation of Common Threads, a rich programme of talks, workshops, tours and collaborative making. In 2024, The Community Quilt emerged as one of its central project — a way to explore how craft holds both personal and collective stories, and how textiles often anchor our sense of home.
The Creative Process
My role in this project combined both art and design. I co-led community workshops at Battersea Arts Centre, guiding participants through block printing and collography inspired by the patterns, materials and stories found at 575. Alongside this, I used my design practice to create the visual panels and storyboards for the exhibition, shaping how audiences encountered the final work.
The quilt was constructed over three months, with each participant creating a panel that reflected their own understanding of home — whether a memory, a cultural symbol, an object of comfort or a thread of identity. For those unable to attend in person, we developed digital craft packs so people could create a Pocket of Belonging from home, ensuring that every voice had a place.
The finished quilt is tender, vibrant, and deeply human — a tapestry of lived experience woven together in community.
Co-Creation
This project was rooted in co-creation. Every workshop created space for reflection, conversation and shared making. Many participants described how the process helped them feel connected to others, to their neighbourhood, and to their cultural roots.
Partners & Credits
Commissioned / Led by: 575 Wandsworth Road (National Trust London)
Programme: 575 Ways to Create and Connect — a five-year National Trust initiative extending the creative legacy of Khadambi Asalache to communities across Wandsworth and Lambeth
Artists: Fée Uhssi, Ksenia Kazinsteva, Roopa Basu and Elena Lo Presti from Craft Forward
Hosted at: Battersea Arts Centre
Supported by: Volunteers, community groups, digital participants, and local craft networks across Wandsworth & Lambeth