A Grand Day Out...

Last weekend I was lucky enough to go on an amazing day out. Guides from the LASER Region (London and South East) were invited to take part in a charity "stitchathon" to make quilts for Project Linus. So on Saturday morning 12 of us caught the train to London to the Vand A Museum, where as some of you may know, there is a patchwork exhibition on at the moment. We were given 9 squares to sew into a "block" and then these blocks would be machined into quilts and backed with fleece to go to children in Great Ormond Street Hospital. This is Eliza getting going...

And Ginnie and myself! We were in the most amazing room, full of huge Raphael cartoons and the light was really poor to preserve them, so we spent a lot of time trying to thread needles! After lunch we were lucky enought to have free admission to the exhibition where there were quilts from 1600 to present day. There was one made by Guides in a prison camp in China during the war in secret, from parts snipped from their dresses and one made by prison inmates as therapy and also there was the Tracey Emin confessional Quilt right at the end. Many groups went home after that but we decided to go and try to finish off our blocks.

So here is my little block all ready to be stitched to the others! Between us we finished about 12 squares and had a fantastic day. A real "once in a lifetime" experience and great to remember.