It is 1943 and Mies Boissevain is imprisoned with seven other women. A member of a prominent banking family, Mies and her family had been sheltering persecuted people and using the cellar of her house as a base for the Resistance group known as CS-6, one of the few groups that performed acts of sabotage. Mies, two of her sons, her niece and nephew were members of the group when they were discovered by the Germans. Many members were immediately executed but Mies and her niece were arrested and sent to the concentration camp at Vught, then Ravensbruck.
Conditions in the tiny cell are beyond grim. It is primitive and ugly, containing a table, some stools and an old mirror that distorts their image. The women are in a poor state and have little connection with one another, when something miraculous happens. A bag of laundry is delivered and hidden amongst it is a simple patchwork scarf. Made from tiny pieces of cloth – of varying colours and patterns – this simple item brings comfort and colour to Mies’s grey world. As she studies the scarf Mies recognises the cloth it is made from, cloth that reminds her of the past and people she has known – blue silk from her first ball gown, patches from her children’s clothing and from her resistance friends. Someone unknown has stitched the fragments together and courageously smuggled it into the cell, providing comfort for Mies in her appalling circumstances.
The scarf is hung around the distorted mirror and Mies takes great delight in sitting with her cellmates, describing the history of each fragment. This draws the women together as a united group, enabling them to gain support and strength from each other. When Mies is finally transferred to Ravensbruck, the scarf has long since been taken from her, but the memory and its message remains with her.
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Esta historia es de la edición January 2018 de Patchwork and Quilting.
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S&B – Excellence And Diversity
As part of the Heritage Open Days held each year by English Heritage, Standfast & Barracks, a fabric printing company in Lancaster, opened its doors which meant visitors could go behind the walls of the severe Victorian building and take a glimpse into the world of printing fabric. Having only ever dyed fabrics with lots of water and messy dyes in my kitchen and printed with wooden blocks on fabric, I was intrigued to see behind the scenes.
Meet A Quilter Joë Bennison
If you’ve visited a quilt show in the last couple of years you can’t have failed to miss the rise in longarm quilting both from the quilts on display to the manufacturers demonstrating the latest machines. I first took notice of longarm quilting when I attended the National Quilt Championships at Sandown in Surrey; here one particular quilter, with her exquisite wholecloth cot quilts, has swept into prominence. The quilter in question is Joë Bennison. I met her at the end of last year to find out more about her and her quilting journey.
First And Last Sally Ablett
This month regular contributor Sally Ablett tells us about two of her quilts.
Six Years Of Journal Quilting
In the last issue, Joanna introduced us to journal quilts. This month she tells us more about her own journey in journal quilt making.
The Sewing Group
Emma Crowe’s new play ‘The Sewing Group’ shows the impact of 21st century technologies and the pressures of high powered work places on our minds and temperaments by conjuring up a simpler life in pre-industrial England.
The Jane Austen Community Quilt – An Update
2017 saw a bustle of activity here at Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton, Hampshire. In May, Lucy Worsley came to the museum to place flowers at the front of the house marking 200 years since the death of Jane Austen; followed swiftly by a year of events including writing workshops, village walks, talks (a highlight being Sue Dell’s presentation of her research into the Austen coverlet, now conserved and redisplayed in the museum) and community sewing workshops in preparation for the completion of our community quilt.
Greenhill Quilting
This month Jacob Reading from Greenhill Quilting tells us his story about becoming the Gammill UK representative and his love of longarm quilting.
A Splash Of Colour In A Bleak, Grey World
It is 1943 and Mies Boissevain is imprisoned with seven other women. A member of a prominent banking family, Mies and her family had been sheltering persecuted people and using the cellar of her house as a base for the Resistance group known as CS-6, one of the few groups that performed acts of sabotage. Mies, two of her sons, her niece and nephew were members of the group when they were discovered by the Germans. Many members were immediately executed but Mies and her niece were arrested and sent to the concentration camp at Vught, then Ravensbruck.
First And Last Sandie Lush
My first quilt was completed in early 1990 and was made out of necessity. I'd always had a keen interest in crafts but this had been confined to knitting, counted cross stitch and the occasional stint of dressmaking. Before getting married, I had never even seen a patchwork quilt, let alone thought about making one.
Let's Go Shopping To Backstitch
Sometimes it’s easy to miss things that are completely under our noses, we forget to look close to home for a solution. And that is what happened when I was looking for a quilt shop to visit for Let’s Go Shopping. I suddenly remembered there was a shop I had never visited before that was pretty much on my doorstep. So on a sunny early spring-like day, I headed off to Backstitch in the village of Barton near Cambridge.
