This quilt was entered into The Great Northern Quilt Show,Harrogate 2006 in the theme category of “African Dreams”My dream for Africa would be the gift of constant running water,which could be irrigated in channels throughout the land and would solve a number of problems instantly.I have used as the base, a collection of Manchester Wax Prints which have been printed for export to the African market for over a hundred years. I was born in Bolton which is quite close to Manchester and have always had an affiliation with textiles and in particular cotton which was a prominent industry in Lancashire while I was growing up.
The colours of the Wax Prints create a distinctive African feel and signify the land in my quilt, while the blue areas which wind their way through the quilt are indicative of the water channels in my dream…..if only dreams could come true.
Inspiration came from work by the American quilter Michael James.
We all have projects which when finished fall short of our expectations and this is one of mine.The backing fabric I chose was too thick and the sheer density of the free motion stitching and machine embroidery caused the quilt to warp and not hang as flat as I would have liked.This has to be accepted as a learning curve and believe me there were a few challenging curves in the piece!
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