Not everyone gets the chance to have their work admired by royalty, but that's exactly what happened for one Bonnyville quilter.
Bea Yuill, long-time quilter and member of the Tangled Threads Quilt Guild, had a hand in crafting a unique present for Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday. Yuill's quilt block, featuring the queen's 1926 birth announcement, was one of 60 chosen to be sewn together in a quilt and presented to the Queen.
“I was elated; I was quite ecstatic,” said Yuill. “I knew I had to do this contest.”
In February, Bernina Canada and UK announced their Quilt for a Queen contest, calling on quilters to submit a block commemorating her 90th birthday. Each entrant was required to donate 15 pounds to Friends of the Elderly, a charity which the Queen supports, before receiving the block to work on.
Yuill, who has been quilting for over 20 years and started embroidery about five years ago, has created many birth announcements in quilt form for friends' newborns. That experience was the inspiration behind her winning quilt block.
“I came up with the idea to do a birth announcement, then I found a picture online of the Queen's mother looking over her, Princess Elizabeth at the time. I did a photo transfer and, with the help of my daughter-in-law, we got the photo to put into a quilt block,” explained Yuill.
Using what Yuill described as “old world gold” coloured thread, she embroidered the Queen's birthdate April 21, 1926 at 2:40 a.m., as well as born by Caesarian section, on top of the picture.
However, in an effort to make it a true birth announcement, she went about trying to find out the monarch's length and weight at birth.
“I sent a letter to Queen Elizabeth asking if she knew how much she weighed or how long she was, or if there was any other information. The Queen's lady-in-waiting sent a reply saying she had talked to the Queen but the information wasn't available, but the Queen was quite happy that we were making a quilt for her,” Yuill said, adding that receiving a reply was one of the highlights of the process.
From researching, to picking out the materials, to embroidering, the creation of the block took about six weeks. After lots of trials and experimenting with different photographs, the block was finally ready to be submitted to the Quilt for a Queen contest.
“I wanted to make it as close to royalty as I could. I used the old world-style, I wanted everything to be in that time period or as close to it as I could.”
The quilt was put together in August, and showcased at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, one of the largest quilt shows in England. It was then that Yuill first found out her block had been chosen.
“It's pretty amazing; I'm pretty excited. I told my husband that we should book a plane and good see it, but it wasn't enough time. We found out on the Wednesday and the show started the Friday.”
Following the reveal, Bernina Canada held its own contest for Canadian entrants of Quilt for a Queen. Out of the several blocks submitted by the country's quilters, Yuill's placed second.
Now, the local quilter is trying to bring the Queen's birthday gift on a tour of Canada so her and the other winners, as well as residents across the country, can admire the quilt in person. While she hasn't heard any word on her proposal yet, Yuill expressed she'll be keeping her fingers crossed.
