About the Quilt
Used with permission of The Sarum Quilters, Salisbury Health Care NHS Trust, and Peter Read, photographer.
This quilt was deigned and executed by Janet McCallum and her quilting group, Sarum Quilters. It now hangs in the waiting room at the Salisbury District Hospital. It depicts the many aspects of genetics: the DNA double helix, meiosis and mitosis, and chromosomes, among others.
Jean Jenkins, one of the book's authors, picked up a postcard of the quilt at a conference, and sent it along to the publisher as a possible idea for the cover. After much e-mailing and detective work, the publisher located the quilt's creator, who was delighted to have the quilt included on the cover of the book. Sarum Quilters, a group of ten women who meet once a month to talk about their all consuming interest in quilts, formed about 20 years ago. Though they like to always have a group project in progress, they also all work on their own quilts and gain inspiration and encouragement from each other.
Sarum Quilters is quite prolific. In addition to the genetics quilt, the Salisbury District Hospital also boasts a pathology quilt containing images of various viruses and bacterium. The group’s first quilt was raffled for Leukemia Research in 1981. Their most recently completed effort produced an impressionistic series of four quilts depicting light shining through a window for the out-patients waiting room at the hospital, a room with no natural light. The luxurious fabrics were donated by the internationally renowned clothing and accessories manufacturer, Georgina Von Etzdorf. Their current quilt is for the Genetics Seminar room and incorporates new technologies including FISH (fluorescent in situ hybridization), spectral karyotyping and gene sequencing, all of which are visually very exciting.
The Genetics department at Salisbury District hospital is currently designing their own web site.