Here’s a quilt my mother made for her granddaughter to celebrate her 21st Birthday, Sally found the design in a book and brought it to Mum, “Grandma, I’d love this for my 21st Birthday, could you….?
Eek, no pattern, no instructions, just an image. So Mum set about it valiantly, scaling up the image then drawing it onto a backing layer, sourcing the fabrics, so many rainbow colours, so little time.
Each fabric piece was individually cut to fit the space on the backing where that colour belonged, and stitched to the backing along the very edge of the piece, so that the black bias binding used to “lead the windows” would cover the stitching. It was then quilted with images relevant to Sally’s life, the logo for her university, The University of Cumbria; a Dragon, because she was born in the Year of the Dragon; a set of Scales for a Libran; two Trefoils to represent the Guiding Movement; the logo of the University of Lancaster where she teaches swimming and a Gerbera to remind her of her Prom Night.There is also space for more quilted memories as they occur.
The quilt was displayed at the last Exhibition our quilt group had two years ago , the best photos of this quilt have my mother standing proudly in front of it, but she would KILL me if I published a picture her on my blog, so this one will have to do.
The Garstang Patchwork Quilters’ next exhibition is 19th to 21st April 2013, find us at Bilsborough Village Hall on the A6 north of Preston,Lancashire, UK. I’ll be there on Saturday morning, see you there.