"In 2000 four friends (Irene Mackie, Judith Rees, Shirley O'Keeffe and Sarah Binks) found themselves in Dhaka, Bangladesh with nothing to do one day and decided to go shopping for Bangladeshi fabric to make a quilt that we would raffle for a local charity. We chose red, white and blue for the colours of the British flag. I was the most experienced quilter (!) because I had learned the basics in Moscow but hadn't done anything for about 3 years, Sarah (Australian) had done dressmaking and her mother was a quilter, Shirley (English) had done a bit of sewing, and Judith (English) hadn't done much at all! I got the job of choosing the block that we would do and decided on Sister's Choice as we were all expatriate 'sisters'. We spent one day playing around with fabric scraps to come up with a pattern of how the blocks would be pieced and then we set to. We divided the blocks between us, made them up and then Sarah put it together with the sashing the following summer when everyone was away. We borrowed a quilting stand from the British High Commissioner's wife, bought some wadding and backing fabric and then once a week we hand quilted the blocks in the easiest pattern so that everyone could do it.

However, Shirley just got started when her husband was transferred to Australia, then a while later Sarah went off to Sakhalin and it was left to Judith and I. We persevered but then Mike and I were sent to Dubai. Judith and I did not have time to finish it before I left and she told me to take it as she did not have a clue how to finish it or put on binding etc. I said to her that I would finish it off and raffle it in Dubai and that I would make sure the label mentioned everyone who had been involved.

That was 10 years ago now. I cannot believe it. There were not many charities in Dubai and the most prominent one was for cats and dogs and we had said originally that we wanted it to be for a charity to do with children, so I put things on the back burner. In the end, I was only a short time in Dubai and then went back to UK while our stuff went in storage for a year before finally arriving in Spain in 2003. As you know, it has taken me all this time to get myself organised and actually find a quilt group here. As long as I can have a photo of the quilt with the people who are raffling it which I can then pass on to the original Sisters, I will be very happy that it has finally found a home"