Almost a year ago today Barbara Fynn arrived at BTHQ for a patchwork santa sack class. It was November 14th and she was dressed in a leopard onesie!
I had no idea if she might be a little crazy or if there was a good reason for this so I smiled sweetly as she politely informed me it was 'Type Onesie Day' a fundraising initiative of the JDRF. Barbaras lovely daughter Juliet has type 1 Diabetes and the family are very involved with the charity helping to raise vital funds for research.
Barbara enjoyed making her sack so much that during the class we began to talk about how she could use her patchwork skills to raise more vital funds. She also fancied getting the Guides involved as all of Barbaras children are members of Girl Guiding UK. We thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to teach youngsters how to use a sewing machine and use a new skill whilst raising funds.
So with a few calls to the various charities involved the project was under way. I called in a favour from our fabulous Patchwork tutor Maria and she wrote out some instruction sheets for all the units and behind the scenes over the following months, hundreds of squares were made by various guide units across the country.
In early September the quilt squares where delivered to BTHQ and Maria, Barbara, her mother and her aunt started the task of piecing them all together. Once completed the quilt was sent of to Long Arm Quilting specialist Jeanette to put the finishing touches on. It has been quilted with a clover leaf pattern inspired by the trefoil and looks wonderful.
(You can read more about the creation of the quilt on the Girl Guide UK blog HERE)
So a year on and we all trotted off to Buckingham Palace today to meet the Countess of Wessex to show her the finished quilt before JDRF aucion it off. She finished the last stitches and helped to add a lovely label to the back. We were accompanied by some of the guides who made the quilt and young ambassadors from JDRF. We had a splendid day, sadly no photos are allowed to be taken inside the palace except for professional ones, but I will have access to those in the next couple of days meaning I can share another post with you about the day itself and the finished quilt in due course.
In the meantime the Countess has written her own blog post about the day and there is a gallery link there showing some of the photos. I you look very closely in picture 11 I am hovering in the back in my Home Sewing is Easy dress!
Do pop back in a couple of days to read '
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