The first quilt I made....
The other day someone asked me "How many quilts have you made?" Without thinking, I said "only one for Mya... apart from the one I made when I taught quilting". Later on, I was going through my photos and fortunately, (as I don't have a memory any more , at least I have photos) and found lots of quilts I've made over the time.
It's true that the first quilt I made from beginning to (almost) end was in Jakarta when I started a group of women quilting. "How can this be?" you might ask. Well as with all things I "winged it". I had done some quilting 100 years before. Well the truth is I started it, lost interest and gave it to my sister, who years later turned it into a beautiful quilt for me - at least the colours were me- red white and black.
My sister is "The Real Quilter" in our family. So, after watching her for years, (I was more interested in boys really at the time she was quilting... ha hum!) I'd actually learned a lot about patchwork and quilting...and boys. Well enough to teach a group of "beginner quilters" anyway...as if I was anything more than a beginner myself - I was better at boys.
So, about the first quilt in Indonesia. When we lived in Indonesia in 2000, things were quite dangerous there; Bombings, attacks on Expats, demonstrations and so forth. Sadly we lost a cousin in the Bali Bombings. The one thing that I loved was the social life, and being so dangerous, expats did find any excuse to get together as a sort of "normality" to the bizarre life we led. George being the security officer for BMW (who he worked for a the time) was constantly on red alert being the contact person with the security company and the Austrlaian Embassy. We received all the government and Security Company alerts to our computer daily and sometimes hourly (especailly when our dear Prime Minsiter would put his foot in it) we were often told to "lay low" for a week or so - it wasn't happy reading. In fact I stopped reading them after a while. I knew the situation, but being who I am (let George tell you one day about the day I went strolling outside the Dubai World Trade Centre's concrete footpath on the 32nd floor without any barriers or guards stopping me from falling) I decided to be very naughty and ignore all the warnings, I went to a place called Tanah Abang. It was a market place, very busy, very dangerous, very crowded and very flamable (both physically and politically). My friend Lyn had taken me a few times before the security level was raised on the area.
It had a few material shops and two that stocked very cheap but good quality quilting fabrics. But it was a rabbit warren. I'd learned the quick way in and out and never deviated. So I got it into my head to go and get some fabric when the security level was heightened. I asked our driver to promise not to tell George and he took me secretly. With mobile phone hook up constantly I was in and out like a flash. I'd bought material in colours I didn’t really like and would never normally chose, but the range was particularly lowthis time, but they were the only ones I could see would somehow work together. So that was the beginning of the Indonesia quilt.
The sad post script is that a few weeks later Tanah Abang was up in flames, and people were killed, because it was such a rabbit warren, and so cramped - they had little hope really. The fire went on for days. During this time, George and I sat in a restaurant which overlooked the billowing clouds of smoke in the distance that used to be Tanah Abung - you can guess what secret event I didn't disclose over dinner!
Well, over the weeks (with Lyn's help) I showed my friends how to make patchwork quilts and a couple did extremely good work. But when I’d finished my sampler quilt I hated the colours so much that I put it aside and left it in a box for years. The exercise had been accomplished' I'd shown the group how to quilt and that was that.
Later my sister " The Real Quilter " and her friends had made over 85 quilts for the "Youth Off The Streets" charity. Youth Off The Streets supports chronically homeless and drug addicted young Australians as they work to turn their lives around. She and her friends made quilts for these young people, to keep them warm and to show they were worthy of these beautiful hand made treasures- often the only possessions they had. So I donated my quilt to my sister and one of her friends turned my (what I thought) horrid quilt into a quilt that some young homeless youth will treasure as their own. I think you'll agree, it’s not so horrid after all.
As a further post script to this quilting story. I was doing voluntary work at an orpahange in Jakarta at the time primarily working with two little girls who were severely disabled due to Cerebral Palsy -training staff, massaging these two little sweeties, helping them excercise and trying to get one to walk. The oprhanage was a real dump, and I asked all my friends to come and help give the nursery a face lift it desperately needed. As all the women in my quilting group had been coming to the patchwork classes for months without paying, I had the courage to ask if anyone wanted to donate time or money to the orphanage. All but 2 donated not only money for the paint and wallpaper, but many of us took all our staff - drivers, nannies maids and some 18 of us gave the nursery a brilliant face lift in just over a week. Guess who the two were that didn't donate anything - neither money nor time. The two women who were millionaire's wives in our group!
On a happier note, one of my friends an Indonesian lass who had an eight year old partially blind child had been trying to get pregant for years. Both of us say that it was her total immersion in orpahange volunteering that continued after the nursery face lift that led to her getting pregnant again - she now has three lovely girls. Ironically she recently sent Mya a quilt.
My favourite design the Blue Willow. A quilt top I made in Uk for Sue in Australia.
A Christmas quilt I made in Australia for Mya's German "Grand Parents".
A denim Winter quilt I made in Australia for Mya and one of her little friends Laurence in Australia.
A quilt for a sofa, for Maragret a thank you for letting me stay with her in Singapore.
A quilt for Helen who loves Irises for her 60th Birthday., also done in stained glass technique
A queen size quilt I made in UK for Issy (Mya's "English Grandma") for her 80th birthday (unfortunately I didn't think to take a photo) The back was signed by all her friends who came to the party at our house.
A pillow I made for Mum in the UK, done in stained glass technique.
One of my student's in the UK - Cindy's first quilt. ( notice the colours?? - she asked me to chose them - these were not her colours either)... laugh. Maybe I've set a trend with first quilts.
No comments:
Post a Comment