Friendship Quilt at Hay Castle

The Friendship Quilt is a community sewing project for asylum seekers, refugees, their friends and supporters. Following on from a quilt that was started during Lockdown the project now involves smaller children's quilts which are added to every Saturday in the Great Hall.

Why not come along and join in by adding some stitches to the quilt?

Here is a little information about the project:

Hay Brecon and Talgarth Sanctuary for Refugees, organise and host Welcome Days in their locality for people seeking asylum or refuge in South Wales. and invite groups to village and school halls, where they can take part in various activities and share a meal cooked by members of the local community.

At one such event in Hay-on-Wye, in January 2020, Emily Hedges and two of her friends, Jenny Chippendale and Julia Joplin, ran a sewing group where people from Swansea sat round a table with a local volunteers and made hand-sewn brooches. Emily remembers:

‘It was wonderful,:everyone really enjoyed themselves and absorbed in this simple activity, opened up and began to talk about their previous sewing experiences. One lady had been a tailor in Basra and another chap had been taught to sew by his mother- we really had a giggle’

As COVID took hold and lockdown led to long periods of isolation for many, Emily began to think of a plan to help people connect once again, through stitching. The idea of a Friendship Quilt grew and she devised a series of packs to be sent out individually to people seeking asylum as well as their friends and supporters in Swansea and in Breconshire where she lives. Each pack contained a square of linen , some embroidery thread and needles as well as simple instructions ‘to embroider a design on the theme of Friendship.’

Link to their website