On the first day of my Patchwork Meeting journey, I met two wonderful ladies – Rosemary and Victoria Hillman, mother and daughter. Rosemary’s exhibition is called My Quilts – Their Stories. Each of her quilts has very homely and cosy feeling about it and represents something important in Rosemary’s life.

Rosemary designs and creates her quilts while Victoria being a professional photographer makes photos of her mother’s works and helps with a website and social media (and here is a post about Victoria’s enchanting pictures of wildlife).

Autumn

This quilt is called Autumn. It was designed as a bed quilt and Rosemary told me that she chose the colors for the design very carefully so when the quilt is laid on the bed, sides will be much darker then the central part of the quilt which would cover the mattress itself.

There are beautiful quilted images of animals and birds mirrored on the sides and bottom of the quilt. Victoria told me that they were inspired by the woods near their home.

Each quilt takes from 4 to 6 month to finish.

Fluke

This elegant wall hanging was finished recently. It’s a shame that photos can’t show all the beauty of the piece. It is three-dimensional, colors and textures are wonderful! The fabric and threads were dyed with Inktence Pencils and Blocks to achieve very subtle shades.

What captured my attention the most is the hand embroidery. It took Rosemary some time to find the right threads for the project. Finally, she chose threads that are traditionally used for hand embroidery of Madeira and dyed them so they would complement the colors of the fabric. Initially, she wanted to use little beads to decorate her work but couldn’t find anything fine enough so decided on metallic thread.

To see more Rosemary’s works, please visit her website and social media accounts (Facebook and Instagram).

Dear Rosemary and Victoria, it was a great pleasure to meet you! Wish you all the best and hope to see you on upcoming textile events!

Love, Jo