Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Sisters of The Travelling Triangles

SISTERS OF THE TRAVELLING TRIANGLES (SOTTT) 2011


Earlier this year I participated in a HST (half square triangle) swap through www.thequiltshow.com They had over 700 participants and around 3/4 million HST's to sort and swap. I was the only NZ participant.
The idea was to sew HST's, paper pieced, and send them in multiples of 28 to the US and the organisers would mix them up and you would get back new ones from around the world. I sent 308 and recieved back 308 HST's from the US, Australia, Germany, Finland, Scotland, Canada, UK, and Wales. I even got some signed ones from Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson. All the HST's were labeled on the back so you could see where they came from. Such fun!
Early on in the exchange, before anyone had sent in their swaps, the February Christchurch Earthquake happened. Immediately I was asked through the forum if we were OK. We were, but family members in Chch had lost a sister in the CTV building and their house damaged. Wanting to know how they could help, they offered donations of HST's to make something special for that family.
A few months on, 1500 donated HST's arrived in the post! Oh boy, what to do with them!?
A message went out mid July on the Quilt Show to say one of the members was planning a book to show all the quilts made from the swaps and could we have a picture of the quilt to her by 1st September? PANIC! No pattern and no idea of what to make. I started by ripping off all the papers from the HST's, trimming the 'ears' and ironing them open. That took almost 2 weeks.
I found an 'orphan block' that would really suit the centre of a quilt and looked on the net at other quilts to steal ideas, I mean use as inspiration, and designed and made that quilt, even quilted it and had it professionally photographed. How I did it by the deadline I don't know!
Anyway, here it is, and it still hasn't been presented to the family, so don't say anything!! They don't even know it's coming.