Originally part of a temporary exhibition, the Happy Memories Quilt is now on display in our permanent galleries.

The creators of the quilt wrote:

“To celebrate the 70^Th Birthday of Crawley New Town, Refugees Welcome – Crawley made a plan to mark this historical occasion by setting up a Community Sewing Project in November 2016.

The idea to start a sewing project stemmed from the desire to get people together from all areas of the Community giving them the opportunity to share a space, talk and sew whatever their sewing ability. Our aim was to have a finished piece that reflected the community in Crawley New Town in it’s 70^th Year.

Our project needed a theme and we chose to produce a piece of work that would represent the happy memories that people hold here in Crawley – no matter where their memories are from.

To get the project underway, we needed: a workspace, materials, and sewers.

For our weekly, 1 hour sewing sessions a venue was kindly donated by the Catholic Parish in Crawley. For those members of the community who could not attend weekly, we also ran some one-day workshops in the school holidays in the Friary Church Hall in the town centre.

Our materials consisted of generous donations from individuals, local organsations and businesses. Participants could use any of the textile donations and other design and sewing materials which were provided at the sewing sessions or they could use their own.

The call-out for sewers went out to local community organisations, in ‘Crawley Live’ and word of mouth resulting in a steady number of enthusiastic sewers every week of all ages and from all over Crawley and beyond.

After nearly a year and a half since the project started, the quilt was finished. It has 56 lovingly-made squares and hand-stitched gold lettering with the motto for Crawley New Town;

‘I grow and I rejoice’.

Thank you to Crawley Museum for getting behind the project and providing a space for the quilt in the  museum.”