CANVAS BAGS!
Don’t miss my eye-catching Canvas Bags – Ideal for those little shopping trips. New design just out!
Recycle, Repair, Re-imagine
Fabrics in particular garments hold memories; of people and events. They bear witness through the wear and tear that they sustain and they can transport us to particular personal moments and back memories, happy and sad. I deem working with preloved and used fabrics a privilege, and I take great care when I am working with them to honour the history that they represent.
I have created several memory quilts, incorporating clothes of a beloved relative and they have become treasured pieces for the recipients. There is something comforting about being able to wrap yourself up in a quilt especially one that is so familiar in terms of it’s component pieces.
I also completed quilts for clients who have found a piece of unfinished or abandoned patchwork after the original stitcher has passed away. I have extended panels, added backings and wadding and quilted them to make them in to a serviceable quilts that can be enjoyed and treasured.
I gave a new lease of life to a beloved soft toy’s jacket and embellished several pairs of jeans using multiple over-lapping patches hand stitched in place inspired by Japanese Boro.
I love recycling, repairing and reimagining textiles and giving them a new purpose.
If you have a project that I could help with, please message me, and we can discuss the creative possibilities. Have a look at some of the recent projects I have worked on here.
Recycle, Repair, Re-Imagine!
Recent Projects ...
Rachel's Quilt, 2024
‘In Memory of Mum’ was commissioned by Rachel for her husband’s fiftieth birthday. She brought me a panel of hexagons stitched in the sixties by her mother in law and a beautiful hand made dress that had belonged to her. The panel came to light after mother in law’s death and had been sitting in a bag waiting for someone to decide what to do with it. Rachel wanted to have it made into a useable quilt and asked if I could incorporate the dress. The panel was made up of an eclectic array of fabrics, cottons, crepes and crimplene, and the patches around the edge still had hand made templates cut from sixties packaging in place.
I created a border of light green and white stripe fabric, and hand stitched the panel in place. I deconstructed the dress and created a second border which set off the hexagons beautifully. I used more of the green and white stripes on the back and to create the binding. There were some small holes and discolouration on the backing piece which I covered using a random selection of hexagons. I quilted it using knots of white cotton perle. As a finishing off detail I unpicked the embroidered
label from the dress and stitched it on to the front of the quilt.
An Antique American Quilt, 2024
This beautiful antique, scrappy patchwork quilt was bought in 1999 in Lawrencetown, Delaware, USA. It is much loved and used everyday. Consequently over the years some of the more fragile patches had completely disintegrated. I was asked to renovate it so that the new patches blended in. This involved sourcing appropriate cotton fabrics and working with lots of asymmetrical panels to match in with the existing ones. I hand stitched the new patches and renewed the quilting knots.
Quilt for a baby
A small quilt made for a baby using a mix of preloved shirts, dresses and furnishing fabric, all softened with many washes in previous incarnations. A simple design using squares for the main panel and oblongs for the borders. It is hand quilted with a light weight cotton wadding, using running stitch.
Celia’s quilt, 2021
I finished Celia’s quilt for her using the linen duvet cover to edge and back it and curtain lining for wadding.
I hand stitched the entire the border and the striped binding and quilted it with knots, 2021.
“I began stitching some small bits of fabric together about thirty years ago. My daughter tried her hand at making a nightdress and later a blouse. So I used pieces of her left over material to begin what I thought might make a cushion cover. But in long winter evenings I continued, I found it addictive. I find it soothing, a kind of meditation. My patchwork I’m afraid was quite quite random, a bit like my life. My garden is the same ho ho! I used packaging cardboard for the templates and later pages from glossy magazines. Of course I had long spells of putting the resulting larger and larger patchwork to the back burner.
Later when my son had his interior design emporium, I loved seeing his wonderful sample books of fabrics, and began to preserve some of them into the large piece of patchwork. I remember picking out samples for children’s curtains, some had little bears, and a little train was another. I thought of my young grandchildren, and if they were poorly they could perhaps count and find the toys in the little patches here and there. Of course that never came to pass as the patchwork lived in the back of the wardrobe. I tried to tidy up the edges and make a straight edge. But lost the energy to finish it to a useable piece of material. It contains a lot of memories, of clothes from my past.
My son gave me a lovely fine linen lavender coloured double duvet cover. And I had curtains that he had made for me. They were triple lined and the middle layer was a thick sort of felted material. You Chris so brilliantly brought the three layers together. I loved all the trimming fabrics you used to edge the quilt, little fine stripes. I am indebted to you for all the fine details you added.
I hope that one day one of my grandchildren will be kept warm and love the quilt as much as I do.”
Celia
In Memory of a Plumber and Dad, 2023
These two quilts were created using an eclectic mix of work trousers, cargo shorts, tee shirts and pyjamas that had belonged to a plumber. The client wanted to include as many labels and pocket details as possible to show the provenance of the fabrics. She also wanted them to be similar but different as she was gifting them to his two daughters.
The quilts were a challenge to make due to the wildly differing fabrics including, fleece, jersey and chunky cotton (the cargo trousers and shorts) but with a lot of ironing at every stage, they came together. I used a beautiful striped linen on the backs that also featured as the binding, and a light weight cotton wadding. I quilted them with hand knotting, one using orange thread and the other using green, colours I sourced from one of the labels.
Shirts and ties quilts 2023
These two memory quilts were made using the ties and shirts of a much loved husband and dad. His wife couldn’t bring herself to pass these much loved items on to a charity shop and had held on to them. A mutual friend suggested she should call me and the shirts and ties duly arrived. Amongst his many ties there were two red ones which gave me the idea of making a series of wonky log cabin blocks. His family tartan was used for the backing and edging and was ordered came from the Locharron Weavers. For quilting I hand knotted buttons that I had cut off the shirts. The client was so happy with the finished quilts that she ordered a third for herself.
As a little surprise I made a star for her newly arrived grandchild.
The Spanish Quilt, 2024
I was gifted this quilt by a lady I met at Marlborough Summer School. She wasn’t on my course but noticed the quilts I had hanging up in the classroom and came in to have a look. She told me about a quilt that her mother had made and that she would bring it in to show me. The next day she appeared with the quilt and told me about it.
“Ethel Horlock (known as Dinah) was a compulsive stitcher and patchwork maker. She made the quilt in the late fifties and early sixties.The templates were homemade from cereal boxes and the material she used were remnants from the dresses she had made for me as a child. The bulk, however came from samples that she sent away for. She never completed it. When she died I found it tidied away with other loose hexagon flowers. I added the blue binding and used it as a throw across the end of a bed.”
Ethel’s daughter gave me this quilt, knowing that I would appreciate and treasure it. I mended broken seams and replaced fragile panels, added wadding and backing, a vintage cotton sheet and quilted it with knots of cotton perle.
