often with intricate hand stitching and embroidery. A quilt is thus a multi-layered three dimensional work of art and craft that requires considerable skill and time. Quilts also are thrifty as they use up even very small pieces of fabric. In the past, women often worked together on quilts as a team or group because of the massive work involved. Quilts also serve as a record of the past while looking to the future, as when fabric such as Shug's yellow dress are re-purposed in new ways. Quilting was also a social outlet with women using the time to visit about the latest happenings in their lives.

Knowing how quilts are constructed, how can this process be applied to The Color Purple? Celie and Sophia are working together on a common goal, taking hundreds of discarded or useless fabric scraps and making something beautiful and useful out of them. What might they have talked over as they sought to piece together their quilt? A quilt takes many different pieces and joins them to make a uniform whole. How does this describe what is happening between Celie and Sophia? Are they reminiscing over each diverse piece of fabric, where it came from and what it meant? Are they patching together their relationship as they patch together their quilt?

The quilt also foreshadows the independence Celie will gain when she uses her sewing skills in new and creative ways when she opens her custom-sewn pants shop.

A very important symbol in this excellent novel is that of sewing and quilting. The way in which women are shown to embark on this passtime together seems to suggest that this activity symbolises the kind of power that women can gain from finding a suitable and productive outlet for their creative forces. For example, consider what happens after Celie and Sofia have an argument about the counsel Celie has offered to Harpo. Sofia suggests they join together to make a quilt, thereby indicating a kind of truce. The pattern of this quilt is very interesting, as it is made up of very different patterns sewn together, symbolising different people standing together in unity.

In the same way, the community that Celie is a part of at the end of the novel is shown to consist of both men and women who are linked together by friendship and family, but who are all very different in terms of gender, orientation and giftings. This is notably compared to a quilt. In addition, as regards sewing, think of the way in which Celie starts a successful pants-sewing business with Shug's support. Celie is able to challenge the accepted belief that sewing is an unimportant skill done only by women, and she transforms it into an empowering and rewarding form of economic independence for her.