HISTORY OF SABA: ARCHITECTURE

The island of Saba is well known for its white houses with red roofs. Shutters are either painted green or red. Nowadays the wooden houses, that were built to withstand hurricanes, are still standing, but new houses are built with cement blocks that were not available in earlier days. Some houses had an added kitchen were the oven was made. This kitchen had an outside wall of  trimmed face rocks, as seen in the left bottom part of the quilt.

Most of the houses had an attractive gingerbread decoration that filters the sunlight, but still allows the air to ventilate through. This gingerbread decorations have all different kind of designs. After they got damaged during several hurricanes people didn’t always replace them, but there is still a lot to see on the island, especially on the old wooden cottages.

Since 1919 Saba has had a legal exemption from the Dutch government to bury family members on their own property close to their home. This practice continues to the present day and is due to a lack of flat land. That is why I incorporated two graves on the bottom of this piece.

Sky and hills are made from handpainted fabric.

Houses are traced, painted and appliqued.

Machine -embroidery and machine quilting.

The whole process can be seen @ http://kunamola.blogspot.com