Fareham mum makes special coronation present for Queen's platinum jubilee

Dee Bushrod set herself the challenge of making a ‘pixel quilt’ of women who have inspired her every month for a year – and decided the time was right to create one for Her Majesty. Her problem now is, having emigrated to the United States, she is struggling to find a way to present it to her ahead of the jubilee celebrations.

‘I am making one quilt a month of a woman who has inspired me and impacted my journey and ultimately I am gifting the quilt to them,’ said Dee, a self-taught quilter. ‘For June I (obviously) had to to one for The Queen. Because 70 years on the throne is a huge milestone and especially now I live far from home, I wanted to celebrate it and commemorate it properly.

‘I wanted to get her done nice and early so that I could package her up and send her on her way to Buckingham Palace. Except, having just looked on the palace’s website, they won't accept unsolicited gifts!’

Dee lived in Fareham all her life until her husband’s job meant that the couple and their two children had to emigrate to Tulsa, Oklahoma. With more than 16 years of quilting experience she uses a number of programmes to take an original image and translate it into a quilt pattern. The process can take anything up to 100 hours in preparation, cutting the fabric, sewing, quilting and hand sewing the binding.

The 44-year-old hopes her modern take of quilting will encourage people to try their hand at the craft, which was once considered old-fashioned and only for older ladies. The Queen’s digital quilt measures 72-by-54 feet, contains 2,701 pieces of fabric and 2,500 gold beads embroidered onto her crown and earring by hand.

‘All in all it probably took 100-110 hours to make,’ said Dee, who went to Solent University and still has many family and friends living in Hampshire,

Dee recently created a large quilt of Volodymyr Zelensky in a bid to fundraise for UNICEF and their work in Ukraine.