A quilt with a difference!

Hello all... as you read this, I'm about to leave to cross the puddle...from Panama to the French Polynesian Islands....I scheduled the post hoping that we would have already left...ha ha
So no we are actually leaving on Sunday and really hoping for some wind because the weather for the month preceding our departure was..no wind...the more wind we get the faster we go :-) unless of course it gets to gale proportions and then......oh well you don't want to hear that....about this quilt... A few years ago I decided to try something different ...I'm not so good at sewing small squares and triangles and such but I still wanted to make something special for my boyfriend's, niece who was soon turning 21.

This is what I came up with:

Gemma's Quilt..she loved it :-D

The Mermaid (Gemma) looking dreamily into the ocean.

A section of the border.

I started the quilt when I was in the UK and worked on it  till I got to The Canary Islands. David and I were flying back to the UK for a few weeks so I took it back with me and sent it to Jenny. The quilt was quilted on a Gammill long arm machine by a lady called Jenny Spencer, who lives up in the northern section of the UK...I sent her the quilt with a note saying.."do whatever you like on here..have some fun"...she phoned me and asked me if I was for real...I told her yes.. I'd met her daughter at a quilt exhibition earlier that year and saw some of Jenny's work. That's when I decided to get her to do my quilts for me. She is amazing. Jenny, hangs the quilt up and looks at it for two or three days...and then over that time she gets inspiration as to how she'd like to quilt it...I just loved her work and phoned her the minute it arrived back in the post....! Exceptional stuff! I flew back to the Canaries and finished it there. I wanted the edging to look like rope..but I didn't do it properly..I learned a lesson there. ;-p Also the ribbon seaweed didn't work as well as I wanted it to...so I learned something there too :-) David took it back to the UK with him where it was exhibited at the Malvern Quilt exhibition...it got a mention but that was it...:-) Only after the show did Gemma finally get to see it. David tells me there were gasps of pleased surprise when it was unrolled and revealed to the family for the first time...made me go all warm inside :-)
I think I may have traced her ..there is a small picture of a quilt called 'Portholes' on this site that certainly looks like Jenny's work : -D
I've asked for a confirmation, hopefully they'll answer before I leave.. ha ha

The bottom right hand corner...

 This is the first of this kind of quilt that I'd attempted... I'm working on another one that is all hand done....I've not been concentrating on it and so it's been sitting about for a year or so...I intend to be a good girl and try and do some whilst crossing the puddle...

So it's what I've been doing while you read this..ha ha...I have finished upholstering the lounge suite  ugh....and I had made a deal with myself......lounge suite first..then quilt.....it's my reward for all the hard boring work..
:-D
Ciao my friends
Nice chatting with you....
I'll be in touch.
Sylvie.