THE FRIENDSHIP QUILT

made by Guild Members 1983

As a Guild we had talked about making this quilt since the summer of 1982. I was Chairman during this time and after much persuasion at almost evry Guild Meeting we obtained the required number of squares in varying shades of brown - each square was entirely different, some made by machine and some hand stitched. After some slight adjustments to various squares it was possible to join them with strips of plain brown fabric. We set aside the week of 12-19 November to complete the quilt top. After putting it onto a large frame several patient members set out to quilt it as in the olden days. We had to use stab stitches as this was the only method possible. The members who made this quilt have good reason to be proud of their efforts.
The Guild has a set of slides on the making of this quilt.

In June 2003 this quilt was handed over to the Quilt Collection of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

by Molly Taylor

RED BASKET QUILT

designed by Jane Lloyd
made in the late 1980s

This is a group quilt, made by members of the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild for themselves. It was designed by Jane Lloyd, with the Guild logo in the middle. The logo was also designed by Jane as part of a competition to choose a design for a badge. A group of friends cut up all the material and divided it up. The basket block and border pieces were drawn on graph paper - this was cut up and used as the paper templates.
The fabric and graph paper were put into bags, some contained baskets, others contained borders. People could choose what they wanted to sew. It was hand pieced from red and white polycottons. Another group put the pieced top, wadding and backing together and it was then hand quilted.
This quilt is featured on the cover of 10 Years On (see Guild History) a 36 page colour booklet published to celebrate the Guild's 10th birthday.

THE SIGNATURE QUILT

designed and made by Avril Halliday
made in the late 1980s

This quilt was made, as many signed and embroidered articles were in the past, to raise money. It should really be called the Library Quilt, as the funds made went to the N.I. Patchwork Guild Library to buy more books.

Made in traditional red and white, the pattern is a variation of Irish Chain - the design of the quilt depended on the number of red squares returned! These red squares were sold to members for £1 and they then took them home to embroider their names on them. This meant that the quilt was very much a group effort.

Valerie Stevenson cut all the pieces, I joined the embroidered patches together into the finished top. Molly Taylor, Barbara Bates and I tacked the three layers together one afternoon, on Molly's dining room table! It had been decided early on to include this quilt in the book,* which meant that the quilting had to be finished in time to take it with all the others to the photographers! Nothing works better than a deadline, however, to speed things up, and the quilting -some straight lines and some Celtic patterns -was duly completed.

Although, for various reasons, this quilt was slow in the making, it was useful, in that we made quite a lot of money out of it. As I quilted it, I enjoyed matching faces to names and was intrigued not only by the variety of the signatures themselves, but also by the incredible stitching on many of them, tiny chain stitches, satin stitches, and one name completely stitched in French knots. I wonder what the handwriting experts would say about it all!

by Avril Halliday

* Book published to celebrate the guild's Tenth birthday......shown on the Guild History page

FANTE FLAGS

In October 2003 two Fante Flagmakers from Ghana, Akwesi Asemstim and Baba Issaka, who spoke no English, visited Northern Ireland to work with seventeen different groups across the social and political divide, from homeless teenagers and people with learning difficulties to senior citizens. They taught the traditional techniques of making Fante flags to embody the spirit of the groups they worked with. The Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild ran a flagmaking workshop and members made 3 flags. These were shown in and around Belfast city centre and the University during the Belfast Festival at Queens.

updated June 2004