I decided in September to do this for my trip to the UK Nov 30th (I live in Australia). I have a 3yo at home and the ladies at quilters group thought I was nuts haha.

Grandma passed away in 2013 and this is the view from her house in England, the house my dad grew up in.

I drew a stylised version of the view in Photoshop then got help to turn it into outlines to print.

At first I was going to use all solid colour fabrics but was convinced at quilters to use patterns and I’m glad I did. A lot of the lovely fabrics were donated from an 82yo lady at quilters who invited me to raid her stash 🙌🏼.

After cutting I turned over and ironed the top seam of each piece and then layered them and whip stitched by hand.

I chose a backing fabric that looked like English wildflowers because Grandma knew them all.

My MIL helped me layer it then I stitched in the ditch (not every ditch… enough ditch).

I took it to England at this stage then had to go buy the fabric for binding and bind it in secret in time for Christmas. I even got to use Grandma’s Elna for part of it before it started smoking.

I embroidered a little patch with her address on it and wrapped it up. I was worried they wouldn’t recognise it but mum instantly choked up and couldn’t speak and my dad exclaimed “that’s Beacon hill, that’s the view from Grandma’s house.” And he shed a tear ♥️

I really enjoyed this project, it’s the biggest and most complicated I’ve done but my next one won’t have the same schedule!