Wallhanging in progress

A friend's mother asked if I would make a wall-hanging using the only ties she kept after her husband died some years ago. Having seen a quilt I made to save the memories associated with my son's baby shirts she thought using her husband's favourite ties to make a wall-hanging would be nicer than keeping those ties in a drawer somewhere. She looked through some quilting books and found a wall-hanging she liked and I used that as inspiration to create a wall-hanging 20 x 30 inches to fit the space she has on her wall for the finished piece. Full credit for the idea and original design goes to UK quilter Mary Mayne. My interpretation is now finished. There are 5 flowers in the piece to represent the 5 children in this family. And the main flower has 11 petals to represent the grandchildren. But there are lots of other petals....so there's still room for this family to grow!!

Jump for Joy

These fabric oulines of my son doing what he loves (jumping around!) are applied to a dip-dyed background. These formed a vertical banner for the EQA exhibition 'Celebrations' at the Festival of Quilts in Bermingham in August 2009. This exhibition will be at the Knitting and Stitching show at the RDS in November and will later move to Wales. The piece is entitled 'Jump for Joy' and is inspired by my eight year old son's ability to celebrate the 'everyday'.