Quilt fit for a Queen

But in a mystery befitting of Agatha Christie, the quilt disappeared half-a-century ago, never to be seen again.

The Queen's adored mother Cecilia, Countess of Strathmore, had laboured on the crewel embroidery masterpiece, along with a matching padded headboard and canopy, bearing the names and birthdays of her ten children.

As the favourite royal's centenary loomed, her great nephew the Earl of Strathmore and his family decided to have the old heirloom faithfully reproduced as a tribute.

Beavering in her Appleby base, the woman whose creations had brought crewel work back in vogue got the commission.

This Crewella de Ville of the needle is Phillipa Turnbull, who three years ago set up home in Eden, a stone's throw from where her elderly great aunts had passed on embroidery skills decades earlier.

The Glamis quilt order took three years and about 800 hours to complete.

It has shot her skywards in the genteel circle of embroiderers.

Phillipa is a character more colourful than her tapestries.

Americans love the accent - and the royal connection.

The Queen Mother has been told the bedspread now graces the four poster, in a suite of rooms she and the then Duke of York used after their marriage in 1927.

"She hasn't seen it.

Glamis Castle is full of stairs and has no lifts, so it would be difficult for her," said Phillipa.

"The Strathmores seem very pleased with it."

After the original quilt vanished, no one could attempt to reproduce it.

Records of the intricate wild rose and thistle design had not been kept.

Then, out of the blue, a letter arrived at the castle from a Canadian woman, whose grandmother had been a Glamis maid.

With it, came faded photographs of the countess's piece de resistance.

Phillipa was the obvious choice to bring an old picture back to life.

Friends had told her she was crazy to set up The Crewel Work Company in Appleby, or anywhere else, for that matter.

It was dead, they said.

No one wanted to work dyed wool on linen anymore.

Phillipa stuck to her guns.

Crewel used to be the nobility's favourite form of embroidery.

At one time, it adorned bedchambers in every castle and fortress in the land.

In medieval homes, the wool-embroidered bed hangings gave knights and their woman privacy.

While Mary, Queen of Scots awaited the executioner's axe, she quietly did her own crewel work.

Phillipa was six when aunts Sophie and Queenie Atkinson in Temple Sowerby placed a needle into her tiny fingers to set the first stitches in motion.

"All my family stitched and painted," said Phillipa.

"My two sisters went to Newcastle to study fashion and textiles.

They went through the wild, hippy thing.

My parents were keen for me not to follow."

Instead, Phillipa headed west, to Ireland's County Clare, where she broke in horses.

But, by 20, she was in Newcastle, studying nursing.

"I never stopped painting - or sewing.

All the nurses smoked or stitched."

Marrying a land agent, she settled to a life of shooting, fishing, cricket.

"I had enough of the whole country thing after about 20 years, got divorced and decided to head back in this direction.

"I looked in the Temple Sowerby graveyard.

It was full of Atkinsons.

This was where I had roots.

There was a sense of belonging.

"I bought myself a car, my daughter a horse, moved here and started the Crewel Company in Appleby.

"People said it would bomb.

Those who knew how to do it were nearly dead.

I liked the stitches.

It represented an era in history and I didn't think we should loose it."

Touring castles and smart country houses, Phillipa started collecting designs and stitches and is responsible for the current crewel revival.

Peter Jones, in London's Sloan Square, is taking her designs, so is the John Lewis Partnership.

She exports work to America, Australia, New Zealand and has a mailing list of 1,000.

A sought-after speaker and teacher, Phillipa said the stress of making a quilt fit for a queen was "truly awful".

"I was working on French silk damask, instead of the usual linen.

I have two teenage children, a spaniel and friends who drink coffee - imagine! So many people wanted to see it, I had to almost rope myself off.

"As time started to run out, all the family mucked in."

The next project is to work on a replica miniature quilt for the Queen Mother's dolls house.

This one will measure three inches by two.

"She deserves the OBE, quips her partner -'Old Bloody Embroidery'."