Story of Family Boabs          Judith Wilton

This quilt was a 4 year journey from idea to completion. When my nephew announced his engagement I offered to make a quilt as their wedding present. I presumed it would be very modern with minimal colours and fabrics. How wrong I was! They searched the internet for potential ideas, with little guidance from me,  then the request came “large boabs in aboriginal fabrics”. Fortunately my husband and I had a trip planned to the Kimberley so many  photographs were taken. These provided the inspiration for boab shapes and the colours of the landscape. I think I collected aboriginal fabrics in the couples’ chosen palette for about a year, what a joy!

Fabrics for the boabs were cut collage style, and with a turned edge, appliqued to the full scale drawing on fine cotton. I did have a short respite as we awaited the birth of their 3 child …. was it to be another boy or a girl. Another boy!

I always intended to paint the sky and was very happy with the result. However, I have to give credit to my husband for the painted and dyed background. I had cut and placed the fabrics for about a third of the background when he gave an “honest opinion” of the progress. “Rubbish …. go out and paint the background” he said.  Thus I painted the background, but still it was not quite right. So following multiple samples I finally got the right colour and dyed the painted background to get that Kimberley red.

 The five boabs, representing the couple and their three small boys, were appliqued to the background. Additional small boabs were painted to represent distant relatives.  All fabrics in the boabs were used for the backing so that it is a double sided quilt.

The family live in Darwin so Covid has prevented them receiving  their quilt, however it  allowed me to show it in the exhibition.

 The quilt was a true challenge but I’m thrilled with the result.  Over my quilting journey I have attended many workshops and I think I used skills gain from everyone in this quilt.  A big thank you to the Committee for putting the Covid Quilt West together and giving me an opportunity to share this wonderful project.

All images & wording provided by Judith Wilton.

Thank you Judith for sharing your story with our readers, an absolutely wonderful quilt that I am sure will be treasured and loved for many, many years to come by your nephew and his family.

You may also like to read more about Judith here, when I did a blog post in 2018

https://waquilters.com/2018/01/13/meet-a-quilter-judith-wilton/.