Too Red to Count: Remembrance Quilt for Appalachian Survival

In the wake of Hurricane Helene's devastation, the Appalachian region was left battered, isolated, and largely ignored. While national attention and aid flowed elsewhere, communities in Southwest Virginia, East Tennessee, and Western North Carolina faced the storm's wrath with little support. My quilt, Too Red to Count, is both a memorial and a protest...an act of remembrance stitched in anger.

The Challenge That Sparked a Reckoning

When I first received the Windham Artisan Cotton Challenge for QuiltCon 2026, I knew I wanted to create something deeply personal. The featured speaker, Hillary Goodwin, had selected a palette inspired by her childhood in North Carolina—six rich, shimmering cross-weave colors that felt like home. I’m from East Tennessee, right where the borders of Southwest Virginia and Western North Carolina meet. That tri-state area is my heartland. When I thought about what I wanted to say with this quilt, I kept coming back to Hurricane Helene—the storm that tore through my home and left our communities devastated and forgotten.

The Forgotten Red Belt

There are many facts about the devastation I tried to summarize below, but my favorite one (the worst one!!) is that we could fix 100% of the damage caused by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina five times over with the taxpayer money the U.S. Government has sent to Israel. Hurricane Helene is on pace to become the least-funded Hurricane in American history. Out of the estimated $60 billion in damages Helene caused in WNC, only $1.61 billion in federal funding has been fully disbursed as of 9/27/25.

Despite the scale of destruction, federal aid stalled. Appalachia—often labeled politically “red”—was left to fend for itself. Billions were allocated elsewhere, while mountain communities waited. The silence was deafening. The neglect was political. And the anger was felt in every corner of my quilt. The Democrats were nearing the end of their term, and I believe they were nowhere to be found because they didn't think they could earn votes in this area. This is a perception and an opinion that is wholly mine, whether it may or may not be true. But I'm afraid because Appalachians are traditionally red voters, why would democrats attend the area to help? Why would they want to?

(BTW, in case you are new here, I am 1000% a liberal and progressive woman - I voted for President Biden. But if you can't critique your political party, aka maybe daddy Trump, you're in a cult. Sorry if that's the first time you're hearing you might be in a cult. It is possible to be a blue voter and see the mistreatment of my traditionally red Appalachian folks.)

My Process

• Southwest Virginia beside East Tennessee beside Western North Carolina.

• Each state is backed by its traditional quilt block, honoring local heritage and resilience.

• The quilt uses six Windham Artisan Cotton colors selected by QuiltCon, grounding it in contemporary craft while echoing historical roots.

• I intentionally broke from the traditional square or rectangular binding—this quilt has edges as jagged and irregular as the mountains it represents.

• I used Affinity Designer to create the FPP (foundation paper piecing) templates. That part alone took foreverrrrrrrr.

• Piecing the quilt top was a marathon of precision and patience.

• I sent the quilt to a dear friend who longarmed a few mountain motifs into the piece.

• Then came the hand quilting and embroidery—every stitch a meditation on loss, resilience, and remembrance. That part also took foreverrrrrrrr.

• The final quilt is a tactile map of grief and solidarity, shaped by the land and the people who live on it.

Embroidered Voices

Across the quilt, I embroidered phrases that I remembered from the time of the storm:

• “Love your neighbor”

• “Who gets remembered, who gets ignored”

• “Where were you”

• “We fed each other”

• “Asheville wept”

• “Have you seen my husband”

• “Too red to count”

• “WNC’s most devastating natural disaster”

Appalachian people will always fight and resist. While the country looked away, Appalachian people did what they had to do. Like they always do.

Artist Statement

In 2024, Appalachian communities devastated by Hurricane Helene were abandoned in plain sight. Aid stalled for Appalachia while billions flowed to Israel—Democrats funded war, not red voters' recovery. I pieced traditional state blocks to embody the enduring Appalachian spirit, rooted in tradition and self-reliance. This quilt honors my Appalachian brothers who were left to weather the aftermath alone. It's a testament to how forgotten Appalachia rebuilds when the country and its leaders look away.

Some Facts

• Fueled by unusually warm Gulf waters—made hundreds of times more likely by climate change—Helene intensified rapidly into a Category 4 storm with winds exceeding 130 mph.

• At landfall on September 26, storm surge reached 15 feet near Keaton Beach, Florida, inundating coastal towns in seawater.

• As it barreled inland, Helene dumped 11 inches of rain on Atlanta in 48 hours, breaking records set in 1886.

• In the Appalachian Mountains, rainfall exceeded 30 inches in places like Jeter Mountain and Busick, triggering deadly debris flows and landslides.

• Asheville, NC was cut off from the outside world—its water lines severed, roads washed out, and power lost for thousands.

• The death toll surpassed 130 across six states, with economic damages estimated at $150 billion.

• Asheville received 6–7 inches of rain before the hurricane even reached the region.

• The Blue Ridge escarpment forced moist air upward, intensifying rainfall through orographic lift.

• Landslides were inevitable: every rain gauge in the mountains registered over 8 inches before Helene made landfall.

• The threshold for landslides in North Carolina is just 5 inches—Helene far exceeded that.

• Indirect deaths are expected to rise as road damage prevents access to healthcare and medications.

• Floodwaters carried pesticides, PFAS, and industrial waste into rivers and estuaries.

• Fertilizer runoff triggered algal blooms, threatening aquatic life and public health.

• Damaged barrier islands along Florida’s coast now leave communities vulnerable to future storms.

• In the mountains, saturated soils remain unstable, and even minor rainfall could trigger new landslides.