I thought you might like to see some other quilts from those early years of our group. This spectacular pictorial quilt was made by Judith for her son Jamie who was about nine years old at the time.

Since it was such a long time ago Judith no longer has the instructions that she gave out but from recollection she asked them for 2 blocks based on the history of flight. She gave each person the pale blue solid that would represent the sky to use as the background and then left it to their ingenuity for the designs.

“There is a mixture of applique and piecing with embroidered detail on most of the resulting blocks. I must have asked them to embroider their names as almost all have done so. Some people also named their airships. It is clear some people did a lot of research which was a lot harder in the days before the internet.”

“Top Row from left was The Wright Brothers bi-plane (mine), Red Baron ( Jacqui), Blimp (Roslyn)

2nd row Hot air Balloon ( Annette), 7 planes – names are wearing off but I think they are Avro 707C, Vickers Valiant Mk 2, Vickers …. Bristol Britannia 100, Gloster Meteor…, De Havilland Comet 2, Avrp Vulcan B.1 ( Robynne), Jetliner ( Sue)

3rd Row R101 Airship (Jose), NASA Space Shuttle ( Pam), Zeppelin (Jacqui)

4th Row Space Shuttle ( Sue) Hang glider ( Toni) KE Helicopter (Jose)

5th Row Hot air balloons (Toni), Sikorsky helicopter (mine) Plain Plane (Roslyn)

6th Row Biplane (Robynne), The Red Baron (Pam), Dassault G8 ( Annette)

I did sew a label on the back but, annoyingly, almost all details have washed off. Some parts of the quilt have worn as well so it was well used when Jamie was growing up.”

Jamie is now if course much older and Judith’s next friendship quilt is also for him but this time, a wedding quilt. He and his fiancé both love retro style furnishings and they have accepted Judith’s offer to complete one of her VERY early quilts in time for their wedding in January. So last month we all completed our part of Grandmother’s Flower Garden using the fabrics supplied by Judith and she now has enough to complete the top after all these years.