The prison charity Fine Cell Work has been commissioned to create a quilt for The Victoria and Albert Museum’s new exhibition Quilts 1700 to 2010, which is being supported by Coats Crafts. Fine Cell Work is a social enterprise that teaches needlecraft skills to prison inmates as part of their rehabilitation.

There are in fact two quilts of interest which have been created for the exhibition. The first is a Signature Quilt that will be auctioned for the charity on 25th March at the V&A to raise funds for Fine Cell Work. This quilt is a glorious traditional ‘turkey red and white star’ design, which has been signed by 72 important artistic figures from the art and design world.

The Signature Quilt has been created by the prisoners of HMP Bullingdon. The signatures were achieved by sending out small pieces of white fabric along with a red fabric pen to selected artists and designers, which were then returned to the prisoners. The signatures were then embroidered using Anchor Stranded Cotton.

Signatures on the quilt include stars such as Judi Dench, Annie Lennox, Terence Conran, Zandra Rhodes and Tracey Emin. This is certainly a desirable collector’s piece and a fantastic snapshot of design history.

The second quilt of interest will be on display for the duration of the V&A’s exhibition Quilts 1700 to 2010. This quilt will depict contemporary prison life, and has been designed and sewn by prisoners at HMP Wandsworth. Many prisoners have contributed.

This quilt, which has taken over a year and a half to create, shows the architectural structure of the prison broken down into cells, and embroidered with words and images to do with prison life. The quilt will be on display along with a documentary film, featuring interviews with the inmates who worked on the quilt over that time.

As part of the V&A Member’s Week, Fine Cell Work will be running a quilting workshop at the V&A on 20th May – with Rowan and Free Spirit fabrics, and Coats Cotton provided by Coats Crafts UK.

These quilts have been made possible with the support of The Friends of the V&A . Threads have been supplied by Coats Crafts UK.