Friday, April 17, 2009

Lynne's quilt - celebrating 25 years of vegan living and our friendship

My Blogger's Quilt Festival entry, an attic window quilt that celebrates 25 years of vegan living. You can see more photos of it on Flickr.

While I was making the quilt, Lynne was diagnosed with breast cancer, which turned out to be a secondary to a stronger and nastier one in her lower spine and the quilt took on greater significance to both of us, this virulent cancer caused her death, and I am so grateful that I was able to visit her before she died and also that she was able to wrap herself in my quilt as she slowly declined. It went to the hospice with her and the last I heard of it was that it was being exhibited in Scotland by her local friends to promote vegan and animal rights, but sadly I've lost touch with it now.

Lynne Mitchell was a wonderfully strong woman whose life and friendship was extremely influential in my life and to celebrate her 25 years of vegan living I created her a quilt that tried to commemorate her actions and activities over the years. Lynne was a woman who acted on her beliefs and she fought long and hard to get fox hunting declared illegal in Scotland and fought against animal cruelty and promoted their rights to live free of harm from humans. She was also proud that Scotland finally regained its independence from England and had its own parliament and was able to see the new Scottish celtic renaissance.

We met when I lived in England in the '80's and we both influenced each others lives and when I returned to Australia we kept our friendship alive by daily emails and two return visits by me to Scotland. Each attic window in the quilt represents some element of her life, the pink cancer ribbon, the rainbow flag, animals living free from harm, letters to the editor and parliamentarians about fox hunting, logos of the clubs and organisations she belonged to, images of mountains and wilderness as she was a great walker and climber of munros in the Scottish highlands and there are also pictures of her family, friends and beloved cats. The colours of blue and yellow where chosen to match the new colour scheme in her bedroom.

I designed and pieced the quilt and it was quilted by a commercial quilter.

21 comments:

  1. A sad and beautiful story---but the quilt made it where it needed to be in time.
    Funny how e-mail has allowed us to keep friendships alive on a daily basis, no matter where we live.
    Great job on the attic windows. I don't do traditional quilts, as my link the the Quilt Festival proves, but I greatly admire those who do and have always wanted to make one of these.
    I never will (know myself too well) so I enjoy the ones other make!

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  2. Many thanks Anne, I like to use trad patterns but with contemporary fabrics. I agree that email has been a boon to friendships and enables closer links than letters. Went and checked out your quilts - bloody creative!

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  3. What a beautiful friendship and quilt. Thanks for sharing your story and quilt.

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  4. Thank you so much for sharing this story. I'm very sorry you lost your friend. Attic window was the perfect block to use for her varied interests. The Bloggers Quilt Festival was such a creative idea. I'm so happy to have discovered so many new blogs, including yours. Thanks also for visiting my blog. My son, Dan has been a vegan for about 7 years. He's a Buddhist and is a strong animal rights activist.

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  5. What a warm and touching story. I love quilts that have special meaning. Take care.

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  6. Thank you for sharing about this lovely quilt. I lost my best friend to cancer 4 years ago. I still miss her very much. We had been friends for 20 years.

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  7. Many thanks all, I too am enjoying all your quilts, its such a fabulous way to share our creativity and quilt stories.

    Dana, I wish your son well, it is a hard road to hoe but we need people with his beliefs to make our world a more gentle place.

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  8. Wonderful story. I also lost a dear friend to cancer. It's been 15 years and I still miss her. I hope through this virtual quilt festival you relocate the quilt.

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  9. What a wonderful memory quilt and beautiful way for you to celebrate a friendship. Thank you for sharing something so special.

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  10. I hadn't thought of that, but perhaps it will relocate it, that would be lovely!

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  11. Beautiful way to honor a special friendship.

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  12. A wonderful quilt to wrap your friend in love.

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  13. What a heart warming story. You might want to post about it on the 'lostquilts' website and maybe you'll find it. Thanks for sharing
    Come see my favorites
    #211 Sandra Starley -petroglyph rock art quilt
    #216 Utah Quilt Appraiser-antique quilts

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  14. I hadn't thought of that, thanks for the idea and I loved both of the quilts you suggested as well.

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  15. What a great tribute to your amazing friend. Your quilt is beautiful on it's own and for all that it stands for! Thank you for sharing :)

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  16. What a beautiful quilt and touching story. The quilt sounds like the perfect thing for when you couldn't be there in person. Thanks for sharing.

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  17. OOOOhhhhhh what great colors!!!!!!

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  18. a great quilt and beautiful story, thank you for sharing.
    when I was living in Sydney, there was a lady in our group called Lynne who also died of cancer and I brought back to Hungary with me her half finished last quilt top to finish, but it is still waiting for its turn...your story inspires me to start working on it soonish.
    Kristina
    priscillacraft.blogspot.com

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  19. Thanks everyone

    Kristina I hope you can get around to that quilt and then post about it.

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