The Heroes Quilt

Featured at The Festival of Quilts and The Knitting & Stitching Show 2021

Delivered a talk about this project organised by

The Embroiderers Guild on May 10th 2022 over zoom at 7pm and now available as a download

How the quilt idea came about 

I was  contacted by one of my students, Sue Arran.

Sue wanted, like me to try and come up with something that people could create

during the crisis to bring people together.

I was moved by a historical patchwork piece that I stumbled across at the Festival hall

in London a few years ago.

 It was created for the Festival of Britain Exhibition of 1951 and was organised by a group of women from Twickenham. The ladies embroidered 100 squares and each square represented something to do with a year from 1851 to 1950. Some embroideries were of inventions and some were illustrations of War.

I found it very powerful. Suddenly in front of me was a brief history of 100 years, illustrated in stitch.

I had a student who had been coming to me for several years making three patchwork quilts for her children out of their old clothes. She carefully stitched the pieces together and each stitch carried love and memories.

She wanted her children to keep these quilts as a happy memory of their times together and hoped they would

 be with them for the rest of their lives.

I was fortunate to be asked to supply some materials for a quilt that a mother was making for a child at a school who had lost a parent to Covid -19.

She organised all the girls in the year to embroider a message on a square from their own school skirts to their friend. They created a fantastic quilt that encased her with love and support that she so

needed at this difficult time.

The power of stitch

We decided to create a quilt that everyone could get involved in.

 We asked people to embroider a 20cm square and create something that illustrated their hero

during the first lockdown of 2020 due to the pandemic caused by Covid-19.

Their hero could be a person, an object or a situation.

As well as the embroidery, we asked people to write the meaning behind what they were creating.

When we started, we had no idea where we were going with the project other than we

wanted to record a moment in time through stitch.

We added posts to various social media sites and waited.

We collected 49 squares and received contributions from all over the world and the UK.

All the embroidered squares and stories have been photographed and written into a book.

They are compelling and some stories will make you smile, while others will make you cry.

The book has been professionally photographed and is a great inspiration for any textile enthusiast.

We have had several people who have read the book who have nothing to do with embroidery and have been deeply moved by the stories and squares.

The Heroes Quilt Book is available to download or as a paper version.

It can be purchased through my shop.

 All profits go to the NHS Charities together.