Many cultures have the tradition of making quilts.
It is a communal way of taking bits of material and stitching them together to create a thing of beauty that can keep someone warm on a cold night. Those who work on the quilt receive comfort by working cooperatively and by contributing their own bright patch of material that, when woven together with their neighbor's, results in a unique and beautiful work of art. Every piece, regardless of size or shape, matters in the creation of the quilt. A viewer of the AIDS memorial quilt or the Ovarian Cancer quilt is touched by the magnitude of the quilt - a tangible measurement of the magnitude of the disease. While each quilt is large in size, each panel represents a single individual.