the friendship quilt

The Friendship Quilt is the indie-folk project of Anna Preston, Kayce Guthmiller, and Marina DeMarco. The three met in 2019 at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle and quickly recognized one another as kindred spirits. They became good friends and then housemates, living together during the depths of the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. They occasionally played music and performed together but it was not until 2023 that they debuted under one name: The Friendship Quilt. In November 2023, they released their debut EP “the friendship quilt says hello,” a collection of acoustic recordings captured live from Kayce’s living room. The EP opens with an improvisation leading into a cover of Elizabeth Cotten’s “Freight Train,” followed by a handful of traditional folk songs and Friendship Quilt originals. It is a simple and honest insight into the essence of the project: gathering in a warm living room, being together, leaning in.

Over the last couple of years, the band has navigated distance, with Marina moving out of Seattle in 2024 and then back down the west coast to her home state of California in 2025 while Kayce and Anna remained in Washington. But despite the thousand miles between them, the Friendship Quilt remains– first as, of course, a trio of friends, then as a musical partnership– a familiar dynamic that can be conjured up with ease across time and distance. Hearing the Friendship Quilt sing live is an intimate and ephemeral gift that draws you in and holds you close.