 Kiné Fall and Babacar Gueye are two hard-working boutiquiers of Guinguinéo who also run a Baye Fall Patchwork business. Close friends of the former volunteer of the town, Paula Hirschoff, the couple was inspired one day to turn their artisan talent into an enterprise. One day while Paula was giving advice to Kiné on how to arrange the boutique, she noticed Babacar cutting out squares from left over fabric. She asked what he was doing and he responded, “I am going to make a boubou outfit for myself with this.” Paula’s response was, “Why don’t you instead make a quilt and sell it to me”; and thus the first quilt was born. Since then, the couple has shipped several quilts to America, as well as selling some to various Peace Corps volunteers. Their business has been expanded to selling a variety of Baye Fall Patchwork. They make quilts of various sizes, as well as place mats, clothes, purses, and cushions.
 The Baye Fall are a hardworking sect of the Mourides, a powerful Muslim brotherhood in Senegal. Decades ago they started wearing colorful clothing patched together from remnants to affirm their joie de vivre and to protest what they saw as an overemphasis on fancy dress. Today patchwork clothing has become a fashion statement, a proud and striking Baye Fall identity badge, often worn with beads and dreadlocks. Entrepreneurs in the small town of Guinguinéo have adapted Baye Fall patchwork style to produce these quilts. The patches are collected from tailors' discard remnants, painstakingly cut by hand, machine stitched together, and finished with poplin backing and a satiny ribbon border. The Senegalese believe that sleeping under a Baye Fall quilt can protect them from evil spirits that fly about at night.
Contact Information:
Tailor Babacar Gueye: 77 268 84 34
Tailor Kiné Fall: 77 226 09 12
PCV Margaret Fylstra: 77 713 41 25
margaret.fylstra@gmail.com
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