Lynne Quinn - an encounter

One of our local groups which organises events and speakers, had invited Lynne Quinne to come and visit and give a talk on Saturday afternoon. Lynne has quilted for a long time and talked us through a few of the many things she has tried her hand on to start with. She showed us journals, and nesting boxes, garments and many samples, but all we really wanted to hear about was the breathtaking quilt she had displayed at the front of the room!



Don't you? Yes, I thought so!

I was thrilled that Lynne explained the entire background, thought and design process to her quilt as, truly, the one thing we always think when seeing a quilt like this is... "oooooh... this is AMAZING... how on EARTH did she do that?"

This quilt was started as the final design piece to graduate on her City & Guilds3 course. You have to make a graduation piece and show your thought and design processes. Just the thing we were so interested in! If you are interested too, I will tell you a little bit about it.

One day Lynne was reading the paper and came across and article about Robert G. Ingersoll (11 August 1833 - 21 July 1899). He was an American social activist and agnostic, prominent during the Golden Age of Freethought. Being a non-believer,he proclaimed that "Life is no more than a pathway, between the peaks of two vast eternities, past and future". Lynne thought this was so depressing that she decided to record in the quilt an alternative to this and call the quilt "A Future and a Hope" (with reference to Jeremiah 29).

Here are the twin peaks with the path going inbetween them.



The other path is leading straight into the circle of light ( I am assuming heaven/eternity) which is symbolised by a mariner's compass. The mariner's compass being symbolic for God, as is the sun, leading into the light.



I particularly like that the path towards the light is paved with patchwork, a solid ground, whilst the path disappearing between the twin peaks is flying geese. Lynne did not tell me about that bit but maybe it is subsconscious symbolism ? (or maybe it was deliberate and she just didn't have the time to go into more detail...she went into incredible detail as it was!)

She quilted the Eagle in the corner as a symbol of hope. Isn't that amazing? I really really love the quilt and knowing a little about the background makes me love it even more!



Another thing I loved about the quilt was the professional finish and the incredible attention to detail. A lot of the very detailed (and tiny) quilting is not immediately visible from the front until you are very close up, but I loved the little touches like tiny birds quilted in the orange, and sneaking a peep around the back of the quilt, I saw that the little birds had been coloured in on the back, SO cute!!



And the colouring and quilting that makes the frame like a frame of a painting, with the picture literally running out of the frame to infinity (it feels) at the bottom end. It really almost just jumps out of the quilt into the room and gives the feeling of continuing. (It physically overlaps the edge of the quilt).

Another just amazing thing are all the colours in the quilt. Lynne handdyed each and everyone of them. She found a couple of pictures in which she really liked the colours, and then set out to dye just the right hues for the colour gradation from the darkbrowns through to reds to oranges and yellow into cream and white. It sound s so easy doesn't it? 'Just dyed it'... well, as Lynne explained, it wasn't all as easy as that, as she spend a lot of time dying, and overdying and dying again till she had just the right shades and gradation.

I could go on for hours and tell you lots more about the design process but I think if you are as enthousiastic as I am about this lady and this amazing quilt, you should look her up and ask her to come and give a talk, a workshop or a teaching course. On here website (click through HERE to learn more about her courses) she gives you contact details for booking and enquiries. She lives in Bristol so if you are near there it is well worth considering!!

Here are some of the many samples of other work she brought for us to see (and talked about as well);



I was totally in love with this tiny jeans jacket she made (was it for a 4 yr old niece? I forgot...). Just look at all the decorations (fabric paint and a LOT of quilting!) isn't it adorable?



here is some of the lovely quilting inside, and don't you just LOVE the colour? It goes so well with the jeans material outside making a great outfit (there was also a tiny skirt with it... bless...)



I could go for hours but I think this post has probably been long enough by now!

So here is the lovely lady herself! She was a little shy of having her photo taken (as I would be seeing a nutter with a camera clicking away requiring you to smile on top of looking straight into a lens! enough to send you running!) so I have put this last (for those of you who have made it to the end) and also (ahum... photographers error) coz it's a little blurry... but Lynne looked so lovely and bubbly in it, as she does in real life, that I preferred it over the perfectly sharp but more formal pic I took. Thank you for so kindly agreeing to pose Lynne!



We all have to choose our paths in life and I for one am glad that Lynne's path is a patchwork one that led her straight to this amazing quilt!