Jules “Jewels of Thailand”

The winner of the Chang quilt, “Jewels of Thailand” made by the ‘Quilting Bees’ to raise money for “Our Home”, is Julie Littlejohn from Bangkok.  Julie and her husband are often in Pattaya to go sailing at the Royal Varuna Yatchclub. Congratulations Julie! Khun Tiew drew the winning ticket and we immediately phoned Julie to give her the happy news. Julie was surprised and delighted with her prize and keen to take procession of her quilt.

 

Background to this quilt:-
• This is the first project of the PILC Quilting Bees group. Most of the ladies have never quilted before, so this was a BIG ask.  A difficult project for someone with much experience.  I ‘fudged the truth’ and reassured them all, “It is all just straight sewing”; this in itself was so.  Baby steps will get us there…and it did!!
• “Chang” were chosen as Janis suggested to me “It must be something Thai”.  Chang are the dearly loved symbol and jewels of Thailand, so they were an obvious selection.
• “Jewels” is also a reference to the magnificent colours of the gemstones Thailand is famous for.  All colours of the rainbow are found in these stones and these vivid colours through the subtle shades of each colour make the Chang charming and lead your eye around the quilt.
• Each block (Chang) consists of 30 pieces; some as small as your little fingernail, and took an average of 1½ hrs to complete.
• 48 Chang blocks were required to make up this quilt; thus it took a minimum of 72 hrs to make these quilt blocks alone.
• 10 hrs were necessary to trim and sew blocks together, to make up the multi-coloured border and sew all the borders together.
• On top of this is the time it took the ladies at “Phuluang” to hand quilt this King Sized Quilt!  This required about 1 week full time.
• The sewing up of blocks was done by; Gillian Stewart, Kazuko Hattori, MegWalker, Echiko Tominaga & Faye Vawdrey
• Faye Vawdrey designed and put this quilt top together.

Thanks to your generosity and that of the people who attended our bountiful Bazaar, and the solid work of the Quilting Bees selling tickets, we have been able to present Khun Tiew with a cheque for 28,150Baht.  WELL DONE everyone, and many, many sincere thanks to all involved. This money will be put to great use.  It will enable the new bedrooms to be built at Phuluang, thus Khun Tiew will be able to help more girls.

Whilst purchasing tickets, many of you mentioned that if you didn’t win (but you were sure you were going to!!) you really wanted this quilt.  If this is still the case, Khun Tiew and the girls at “Phuluang” can help you!  Just phone Tiew on    081-644-4432   and she can make you an exact replica.  Voila, problem solved!

If you would like to learn to quilt or you sew and think you might like to help with our next projects, please come along to the Quilting Bees next get-together at my apartment.  We meet the 2nd Wednesday of each month.  See Tropics Topics Diary/PILC Special Interest Groups pages for details.  We would love to see you!  We have all really enjoyed working on this project together and making new friends.

Faye Vawdrey