been included as well.”
The memorial is particularly fitting, given the
contribution knitters made during the First World
War, from the British housewives ‘knitting for
Tommy’, to the Belgian grandmother who sat with
her needles at a train station, and used a knitted
code to convey information about enemy troop
movements without being detected.
Karen’s great-grandfather Tom, the original
inspiration for the quilt, is marked with an
arrangement of blue glass, while Charlie, a butcher,
has a striped butcher’s apron adorned with a poppy.
Nineteen other trades are commemorated, with
many panels representing more than one man.
Three of the soldiers that are remembered in the
quilt are also named on the memorial at Thiepval
to those who died at the Somme, and Karen used
a floor plan of the memorial as the inspiration for
their block.
The piece named for Walter, representing five
gardeners who died, features flowers from the four
seasons.
Karen said, “When I started this project I did
not know what the finished result would look
like. However, I did know that I wanted it to
look attractive – I wanted people’s reaction to
be positive rather than them think, “That is
really morbid”. I scribbled a few ideas on the
back of an envelope to see if the idea was feasible
but did not draw out the design for each block.
“My quilt has a total of 335 stitches and 627 rows.
I roughed this out on lined paper allocating rows
and stitches to each block. However, this sometimes
changed when I needed an odd or even number of
26
stitches. I also sort of decided which occupation to
allocate to which block – and then as I went along
I changed my mind and things got moved around.
“The other problem was that I discovered more
relatives while I was knitting and so the current tally
is 67 of my relatives and one belonging to Karen
Draisey of Rowan Flagship Oxford Yarn Store. I
know this number will change again.
“I am pleased with the finished result in terms of
colour, because I did not put the blocks together
until the end – I just tried to keep the overall design
in my head and make sure the colours were spread
across the quilt.
“I want people to look at the quilt and think, ‘That
is attractive’, rather than, ‘That is depressing’.”
You can see Karen’s memorial quilt at Oxford Yarn
Store, 3 North Parade Avenue, Oxford, OX2 6LX,
where it will be on display during November. Karen
will also be giving a talk about the quilt on Saturday
November 10.
ROWAN
OXfORD YARN
STORE
Read more about how each block was
designed, and the story of the men
who inspired it via Karen’s blog below
under the label WW1 Memorial
Quilt.
BLOG