I have spent a couple of days thinking about and exploring ways of sewing all the signatures together. It is hard to plan too much in advance with collaborative projects like this, you can never be certain, how many people will actually be involved.
To date we have 216 with possibly 50 – 75 more to come from numbers of packs that have been collected from Touchstones. A few of the Begum’s I have spotted so far.
It is interesting as I reflect on the early sessions now looking at all the signatures. I decided from the outset I would include all the sewing no matter whether it is legible or well sewn. If you begin to mess with one in anyway, where do you stop? The range is amazing, from styles of writing to skills in embroidery.
I have photographed a number of compositional ideas and as I am on holiday for 10 days I am going to mull it all over before a final decision of the format of the cloth. Quite a responsibility, everyone will want to see their signature and it needs to look good too.
Found a signature I photographed from the 1895 quilt – compare styles.