Triumph and Tragedy

Pamela of Magdalene Jewels started a project on her blog in January called Triumph and Tragedy.
Her idea is to make 2 quilts with blocks from various artists on the triumphs and tragedies of the 20th century.
You can read about it here Triumph and Tragedy

I am proud to say that I am part of this project.

The subjects are varied, from global tragedies such as 9/11 and hurricane Katrina to personal tragedies such as the death of a child.
The triumphs are just a varied from the first moon landing to reminders of the beauty of our earth and how fragile it can be.

I wanted to pick something that is very close to my heart.
Living on the coast, the Lifeboats of the RNLI and their crews are the unsung heroes of our everyday lives who go unnoticed, even by many in this country, until summer when they can be seen rescuing people caught out by the tide or stuck half way up a cliff face.
But these crews also work in the deep dark winter to save many lives in our waters.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is the charity that provides a 24-hour lifesaving service around the UK and Republic of Ireland. To note is that our lifeboat service in the UK receives no government funding. The crews are volunteers who are ordinary working people from everyday life but deserve to be called heroes for the fantastic work they do.

You can read all about the RNLI here at their website
I urge you to go the press centre and visit the Photo Library. There are some spectacular photographs of the boats in action.

So my project picked I wanted to show that these fantastic people have tragedies as well as triumphs.

The first quilt is a lifeboat returning proudly to its safe harbour and the second is a boat that got stuck on some rocks recently while trying to save a small boat. The boat was saved although the lifeboat was beyond repair.
A little triumph and tragedy all of it's own.

I wanted to give a feeling of the waves so the background pieces are quilted with wavy lines. The pictures of the lifeboats were printed onto cotton and ironed to the backgrounds and satin stitched around the edges.

Don't forget to keep up with the progress of this extraordinary quilt on Pamela's blog.