Treasures of the Forest. This is my first landscape quilt. I made it for the Hoffman Challenge 2002. It was exhibited in several places in England and also Scotland. I won the first prize under the Experimental Category at the Maria Peter's Show in 2003.

Welcome to Nava Young’s web site. This is a new departure for me and I hope it will help our friends in the UK and abroad to keep in touch and support my love for patchwork & quilting.

I was born in Malaysia and came to University in UK to read Biology & Chemistry. On finishing my Bachelor of Science degree I stayed on at University to do a PGCE course and ended up teaching Chemistry & Physics. My jobs took me to Merstham, Surrey; Warwick School in Redhill, Surrey; Sevenoaks School for Girls; Hazelwick School in Crawley, West Sussex; Beacon School in Banstead, Surrey and finally to Bishop Wand School and finally to Sunbury on Thames (Middx) where my husband was teaching.

Mick and I adopt a baby from Sri Lanka in 1990. I was granted ‘maternity leave’ to stay with our daughter (Anita, then 3months old) for 9 months. Anita was the perfect baby and I had time on my hands. This is when I first took up Patchwork. Inspired by friends who where avid quilters, I challenged myself to make a small quilt. Like most people it grew and grew to become a double bed spread.

A year later, I had a call from the Head of Science from Mick’s school to help out for a few weeks before the end of the summer term to teach Chemistry one day a week. I went back to work and at the end of the term was offered a part- time job for the following year. That was the end of my quilting days. Sadly a year or so later I became ill with Angina. I was given early retirement due to ill health. I am a ‘Young’ pensioner now!

I did not do any more quilting till we bought our hotel and came to the Isle of Wight in Dec 1996. I dabbled in a number of small quilts, trying out different techniques still never completing any project. So in September 2001 I joined a group with the intention of completing some of my work. This I did successfully. Our teacher then persuaded 3 of us to enter the Hoffman’s Challenge 2002. The title was ‘Treasures of the Forest’. Reluctantly after much persuasion I agreed to have a go. Sadly after 3 weeks our class folded up and the three of us were left to cope on our own. We helped and encouraged each other to complete the wall hangings and actually sent our quilts off to Sandown. We were very pleased to hear 80 quilts were short-listed and our quilts were amongst them. It was even more exciting when our quilts did a tour and was exhibited in Harrogate, Scotland and finally 30 were selected for the exhibition in Cambridge Mine was still exhibited here. I was really pleased, as it was the first landscape quilt I had done.

I entered this landscape to another exhibition and won first prize. This was my first ever award for Quilting. I was over the moon and was motivated to create many more quilts. In Nov 2002 I was persuade to take part in a Bag Competition held in Milton Keynes. I decided to make an evening shoulder bag. To my surprise I won first prize again. Since then I have been commissioned to make two more bags and many quilts. In Jan 2003 I was asked to teach a class on landscape in our local Quilt Group. We were having an Exhibition in the Quay Arts centre. At my workshop some folks produced some lovely quilts for this exhibition. This teaching experience was different from teaching chemistry as I could not blow up things. Despite that I thoroughly enjoyed doing it. It was nice to see so many beautiful varied quilts produced at the end of the workshop.

I belong to the local Vectis Quilters and also meet with friends once a week to exchange ideas and get inspiration. I continue to be creative whenever time permits amidst cooking over 20 full English breakfasts and some evening meals for our guests and also caring for my husband, daughter and my mother-in-law in her late 80’s who lives with us. I have since been asked to give talks and hold more workshops.

I really love quilting and being creative. I hope you too are inspired as you see some of my work to create more quilts. My husband is always saying 'QUILTERS ARE SLOWLY TAKING OVER THE WORLD.' Perhap one day we might! In the meantime ENJOY QUILTING!!!