Quilt's I'll never forget

Last night was the February gathering of the local quilt guild. We had a speaker, Mavis Rosbach, of Quiltbird Studio. She gave a presentation titled "Three quilts you've probably never heard of, but I hope you'll never forget." Three fascinating stories. I'll tell you the first one now.

The first was about Elizabeth Gurney Fry.

A well-to-do British woman in the 1700s who decided not to live a life of leisure, but rather one dedicated to others. She trained some of the nurses who went with Florence Nightingale to aid the soldiers in the Crimean War, but she is better known for her work to improve prison conditions. Elizabeth worried especially for the welfare of women prisoners, and worked tirelessly to improve their lives. One of her most interesting and innovative, even ingenious projects involved teaching female prisoners to quilt. She gave them the supplies they needed to make a quilt when they set sail for the penal colony now known as Australia. The hope was that they would use the four months at sea to sew a quilt that they could sell upon arrival. Giving them a bit of dignity and a means to support themselves in this new land. One quilt survives to do this day, called the Rajah quilt, named for the ship the women sailed to their new home.

Here is the label on the quilt:

I have really not done justice to Mrs. Fry, but you can learn more here.