Pupils’ Quilt Marks 1,000 Years of History

From the first novel written in 1008 to the opening of the Holocaust Museum in 1993, fifth-grade students at Welby Way Magnet School have paid tribute to the millennium’s most significant--although in some cases, obscure--events in a beautiful quilt.

The 6-by-6-foot quilt sewn by 90 students is composed of 100 panels, documenting an event from each decade. A drawing was held to determine who would research each decade, then it was up to each student to do the research and decide which historical event would be illustrated in cross-stitch.

“They looked through timelines for whatever looked interesting,” said Adria Metson, a social studies teacher who oversaw the project. “If nothing looked interesting, they tried to make it look interesting. I thought their choices were very good.”

Some of the more humorous historical events on the quilt include the settling of Liverpool, England, in 1210, next to which to the student sewed “Long Live the Beatles;” and Marco Polo bringing pasta to Italy in 1295.

Of course, the quilt includes many of the biggest events, such as the invention of the lightbulb in 1879, women’s suffrage in 1920 and the first moon landing in 1969. But the quilt also highlights significant but lesser-known events like the first use of the equal (=) symbol in 1557, first U.S. mail service in 1673 and the invention of the Celsius thermometer in 1742.

In addition to learning history and the art of quilting, students honed skills like perseverance and dependability. “They were working for the good of the group, not just themselves,” said Metson, whose 21-year-old daughter came up with the original concept.

The project, which took from January to May to complete, got a helping hand from teacher’s aide Kim Savela who searched 10 stores to find just the right material and spent 200 hours sewing all the squares together to finish the project. The quilt, the seventh produced by Welby Way Magnet students, recently took Best of Show at the Los Angeles County Fair.

Mary Watts, who cross-stitched a girl with a sword to commemorate the Fifth Crusade in 1217, said she enjoyed working on the project.

“It was really interesting, reading everyone’s panel and learning all the dates. There were a lot of things I’d never heard about,” said Mary, 11, who is now a sixth-grade student at Lawrence Magnet Middle School in Chatsworth.