Hill - Stitching with Beatrix Potter: Stitch, Sew & Give 10 Adorable Projects Featuring Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck & Friends

Author Michele Hill

michelehillquilts.com

williammorrisandmichele.blogspot.com.au

Photography Michele Hill

Additional Photo credits:

Page 7/8 - Beatrix Potter with her father and brother, Lindeth Howe

Lindeth Howe Country Hotel, lindeth-howe.co.uk

Hill Top path, Hill Top Farm, Castle Cottage, Herdwick sheep

Betsy Bray, betsybray.org

Page 52 - 1863 Rupert and Helen Potter Wedding Quilt

National Trust Hill Top, nationaltrust.org.uk/hill-top

Welcome

August of 2010 was the first time I met Helen Bertram of Whitecroft Tours in person and one of the first things she said to me was: You have to write a Beatrix Potter book! She had seen rabbits and ducks in my nursery quilts in my 2010 book More William Morris in Appliqu where I had recorded my love of growing up with Beatrix Potter books. So it has taken just six years and I have finally done it. One of the things that Helen really wanted me to avoid was a book full of cutsie wootise characters and focus on Beatrix Potter the artist, scientist and conservationist, so I hope I have managed to do that.

As I write this I have vivid thoughts of my recent (and very first), visit to Japan in January of 2016. I had heard that there were to be two special displays of both William Morris and Beatrix Potter inspired quilts at the 2016 Tokyo Quilt Festival. It was not something on my bucket list but when I found out there was to be both a William Morris and Beatrix Potter quilt display I just had to go! It was here that I saw the most incredible hand stitched quilts I had ever seen in over 30 years of quilting! The hand appliqu and embroidery adorning these Beatrix Potter inspired quilts were from Yoko Saito and a group of ten other quilters. Under Yokos direction each quilter had painstakingly reproduced Beatrixs characters and stories with meticulous detail and accuracy. My immediate reaction was to phone Larry at home and tell him that my attempts at producing a Beatrix Potter quilt book seemed worthless and maybe I should bin the idea! At this stage I had actually completed all the projects and just had the typing to do. But in Larrys wise words he reminded me that perhaps what I had seen would be unachievable to manyincluding myself! So here is my version that I hope will appeal to all levels of stitcher, from novice to expert. The most challenging project is the 1863 Wedding quilt which should have been hand pieced to replicate the original. But with time constraints and my dislike of piecing I decided to complete it entirely by machine and all in appliqu.

While reading Linda Lears biography of Beatrix Potter, I discovered a possible connection between Beatrix and William Morris! Beatrix sent her early stories to the grandchildren of Edward Burne-Jones, Morriss lifetime friend and business partner. I also learnt that Beatrixs father Rupert was a professional photographer and was often asked by another Pre-Raphaelite artist, Sir John Everett Millais, to photograph subjects or scenes for his paintings. Beatrix was also an active member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings that Morris formed in 1877. Like Morris, she appreciated handcrafted work and had a mutual love of nature in the Arts & Crafts style. So through these connections I wonder if William and Beatrix actually ever met?

Acknowledgements

Once again I find myself expressing my overwhelming gratitude to Helen Bertram of Whitecroft tours in the UK for planting the seed for a Beatrix Potter book all those years ago. Helen also offered to write the history for me so I didnt let her forget! I must also mention that Helen was the Chairman of the UK Beatrix Potter Society for several years and has great knowledge of her. In fact, she once told me she is as obsessed with Beatrix Potter as I am with William Morris! Thank you so much, Helen, for your knowledge and time, and I hope that this book might result in more people learning more about this wonderful author/artistBeatrix Potteras I did!

Special thanks also go to Helen for following up on images for me. A special thank you to Alison Magee-Barker FIH, General Manager, and Clare Bateman, Assistant Manager of Lindeth Howe Country House Hotel (www.lindeth-howe.co.uk), for supplying the historical images of Beatrix Potter and Lindeth Howe. Helen also introduced me to Betsy Bray (www.betsybray.org), who so kindly supplied photos of Hill Top Farm and the Herdwick sheep. Betsy resides in the US and has been a member of the Beatrix Potter Society since 1984. Thanks also to Liz Hunter MacFarlane from the UK National Trust and Hill Top (www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hill-top), for sending me the image of the 1863 wedding quilt. I feel extremely blessed and honoured that I was given permission to reproduce this historical Potter quilt for the book.

Thank you to everyone that Ive met on my quilting journey and especially for being so supportive of my first self-published book Afternoon Tea with May Morristhat was the trial run before taking on this challenge!

I must also mention Pamela, who I met at a quilt show in Bordertown. I was a guest at the show where I was hand stitching the Hill Top wool felt box. I was wondering what I should add and a few weeks later after meeting Pamela, a delightful letter came in the post with a sample suggesting a trailing vine and leaveswell, I had already started on the wisteria, but Pamela, I wanted to thank you anyway! I give thanks every day for my special quilting friends that I meet with regularly. You always encourage me and for that I am so grateful.

My thanks again to Di and Wink from Allbiz Supplies, South Australia, for again providing their expertiseand especially the kind and patient Wink! He is always so helpful and full of so many ideas with layout. Youre the best, Wink!

And as always I am forever grateful to my daughters and their partners for the time this all takes, and of course I could not do this without my best friend and husband. His unwavering support is truly incredible and if it wasnt for him this book would not even be a consideration. Thank you, Larry, from the bottom of my heart.

Beatrix Potter's writing desk at Hilltop

Beatrix Potter 1866-1943

Helen Beatrix Potter was born at Bolton Gardens, London on 28th July 1866, the first child of Helen and Rupert Potter. Beatrix wrote, aged 75, that even though she and her brother, Bertram, were born in Londonour interests and our joy were in the North Country.

Hill Top path

Like many wealthy Victorian children, she did not see her parents very often but was looked after by a nurse and educated at home by a governess. Beatrix did not have many friends her own age because her parents did not want her to pick up bad habits or illness, but she had her younger brother, Bertram, for company and they were allowed to keep a great variety of petsrabbits, mice, lizards, a snake, a bat, a frog and a tortoise. The children studied these animals carefully, recording their habits and making sketches of them.

As Beatrix grew older her father began to take her to art exhibitions and she met several influential artists, including John Millais. Around this time, at the age of 15, she began to keep a diary written in secret code. She wrote about people she met and the exhibitions she visited. This code was not cracked until several years after her death.