Do you remember the first encounter which sparked your wonderment of patchwork, the force that said to "I want to make one like that". I was seven years old when that moment hit me. My Mother took me to Torquay Museum in Devon. I remember lots of stuffed birds in glass cases and fossils at the entrance.
We climbed the stairs to The Laycock Gallery situated on the top floor. My eyes immediately focused on a huge glass panel which housed a beautiful Hexagon Patchwork Quilt. I studied with awe the neatness of the arranged small hexagons sewn together by hand. The colours were not vibrant, mostly brown, beige, ochre and salmon pink, blues and olive green cotton fabric. I was totally mesmerised by this massive beautifully crafted hexagon quilt. I asked my mother to teach me how to sew hexagon patchwork. She did.
The quilt that so inspired me was created by Marianna Louttit (circa 1835) and she lived in the village of Mylor in Cornwall.
About 23 years later 1989, writing for the American Magazine "Quilt World" Feb/March 1989 (see article below this blog), I revisited Torquay Museum in the hope that the quilt was still there. It was, the impact was just as powerful as I remembered. I took the photographs reproduced in this blog. Apologies for the poor quality.
Fast forward another 24 years to August 2013, and the photographs re-surfaced in a long lost box of diaries. For the third time in my life the memory of my happy childhood hit me. Still sewing hexagons, still loving hexagons and happy knowing that thousands of ladies all over the world are creating patchwork quilts using hexagons purchased from my websites, produced from my own hands.
See: http://www.patchworktemplates.com
