Mini Quilts inspired by my grandmother

I haven't updated my blog for a long time but I have been busy creating. Last year I enrolled on a year long textiles course at the City Lit in London which I found very inspiring. The quality of the teaching was incredible and I was lucky enough to be taught by a textile artist I already admired, Louise Baldwin. I stitched two mini quilts inspired by my grandmother.

Epitaph

This piece was made from a selection of my grandmother's old fabric scraps alongside some others I have in my extensive stash. I printed a photo of her on a scrap of the nightdress I wore when I was in hospital after giving birth to my twins. The embroidered text is from her epitaph, written by my mother. You can find a larger resolution image on my Flickr page.

Fragments of memories

The mini quilt above was made entirely with fabric that belonged to my grandmother. The hexagon fabric is offcuts of 1970s floral fabrics left over from dressmaking projects, some of it Liberty prints. I used copies of old photos from her photo album and postcards and letters that I had received from my grandmother as a child as templates and kept them visible instead of just using their shape and discarding them as it usually doen with hexagon quilts. The hexagons were then sewn onto an old lacy textile piece that I inherited. A larger resolution image of this is on my Flickr page.

There is an earlier post about my grandmother, Kate Frank AKA Omeli here. Yes it took me about five years to get around to starting on this project. It isn't the end either so watch this space!