An Imaginary Voyage of Discovery in the South Pacific

My partner, Janine, sent me this wonderful compass as my inspiration piece for this quarter's quilt.  I was quite overwhelmed to receive it.  

Knowing that all my fabric was, at the time, in my studio where I couldn't get it during lockdown Janine also very kindly and generously sent me some fabrics, including the marvellous piece of map which went into the quilt.

The compass immediately set me thinking about great endeavours.   I love the stories of Scott and Shackleton, and sea-going adventures, like Darwin's on the Beagle.   A couple of years back, we visited the Discovery in Dundee, and I was really taken with the laboratory and its portholes.  

Then, having a particular interest in plants and horticulture, I read up about some of the great plant hunters who travelled the world bringing back new (to us) species from round the world.  In my head all these things finally came together in this quilt, combining science and adventure.

The story goes...

It is sometime in the 1800s.  The occupant of this cabin, the Scientific Officer of HMS Persevere (Leith), has gone on deck to watch as the tiny South Sea island they have just visited recedes out of view as they head further south.  On his bench are some shells he picked up there, and a piece of Ipomea pes-caprae - named Goat's foot morning glory because of the shape of the leaves - which grows on beaches throughout the world.  Its seeds are dispersed in salt water.  It is not a great discovery as it is already well known but it was beautiful to see and he may paint it later - he is a competent botanical artist.  A Monarch butterfly has found its way on board and will hopefully evade the killing bottle.    The Scientific Officer has been delighted in the last month to receive a letter from his wife, enclosing a studio portrait of his three little girls who he hasn't seen for a year.  He hopes to find more letters from home next time they reach a port visited by packet ships.    He misses his family very much, but until then he will be busy examining rocks and barnacles under his travelling microscope (currently in its box away from the salt air), and writing notes for posterity about beetles of the South Pacific.

Porthole view

Monarch butterfly

A family picture

A real, and a stitched shell

I had a lot of fun making this quilt and imagining the life of its subject has been a hugely therapeutic bit of escapism. Thank you so much Janine for such a lovely prompt!

[Note: Leith is part of Edinburgh where I live, and contains a large port.  The motto of Leith is 'Persevere' - a good motto for the times!  The little Victorian girls in the photograph are actually my great grandmother and her sisters in the 1800s.  The butterfly is a tribute to my grandfather, an entomologist.  I still plan to use a picture of my other great-grandmother as a stand-in for the Scientific Officer's wife, but she is currently in a box somewhere at the back of the attic!  The woman of this era who were not fortunate enough to be adventurers themselves deserve a lot of sympathy and recognition.]

Rainy Day Recall

On rainy days, I am so happy to stay inside and work on digitizing old family photos.

Outside on a rainy day.

Inside I spend the day with old family photos.

 
These photos may not have had raindrops actually falling on them from above, but many of them have suffered the effects of rising water.  They have gone through a flood or two, been pulled out of soggy photo albums, separated, dusted with talcum powder, and left to dry.  Eventually, while more pressing flood repairs called, they were tossed in a box to deal with "later."

I sort them, scan them, repair them, and upload them for future generations.

What better way to bring them back to life than with an art quilt?

"Rainy Day Recall," the computer screen and photos, translated into thread sketches and a mini-quilt.

A suggestion of a portrait, in green thread.

A photo revitalized, printed on Lutradur and sketched with threads.

I took this particular box of photos, mostly from the 1920s to 1940s, out of the family homestead garage when my mother-in-law downsized.  About six weeks later Hurricane Harvey hit, leaving five feet of water in the house.  They would have been a soggy mess not worth saving one more time.

Not only am I working with old family photos, but a lot of the trims and notions were handed down from family members as well.  They have little notes about when and where they were bought, and how much they cost.

I had so much fun blending different techniques into one piece, and you can read more about how I created it here.

Bring on a rainy day, and let me see which photos call out to be next!

That Tiny Touch of Nature

In the middle of December, I was out gathering some native grass seed with a conservancy group, when a small bird demanded my attention.  She was a Sedge Wren, and I knew she was perfect for this project.  Just a tiny touch of nature on the edge of a huge city -- so easy to overlook but still surviving, still bringing a spark of diversity into a monoculture of humanity.

Sedge Wren

About three years ago, I had taken a picture of a Carolina Wren, and the curving lines of the branches and vines around it caught my eye.  I realized how shrubs that are nondescript to us, are important shelters from the birds' point of view.  I had done several small sketches and practice mini-quilts from that picture.

Carolina Wren

Since that first Carolina Wren picture, I have gotten other pictures of wrens and sparrows sheltered within branches.  I thought a series of them as a wall hanging would make a great project for our theme, but I only finished this one small square.

The original photo had composition issues, with branches taking up the majority of the space, and blocking the view of the wren, so I simplified it to turn it into this quiltlet.

I painted dye on the corners of an old linen napkin and machine quilted lines to suggest the leaves.  I printed the wren on inkjet printer cotton and appliqued her on.  The white area I had left for the tree branches was too white and plain, so I added some color with fabric crayons.  To emphasize the lacy gray-green lichen around the bird, I stitched some rayon braided ribbons and pique trim in loose loops.
I will post more of the details on my blog Deep in the Heart of Textiles.

As with a lot of pieces, I can see a lot of room for improvement here!  But I had fun making it, and I am glad to commemorate one of my own nature encounters.

Quilt Reveal of "Nature Photography"

This exciting day has arrived!
The Endeavourers, a new online art quilt group has its first quilt reveal for its members!
Our group of 14 quilters from around the world were charged to interpret the theme of NATURE and make a quilt based on it. You can read our mission statement HERE.

I was not the only member who had ideas churning in my head for nearly two months. Nature can be defined in many ways such as the essence of something, human nature or that of Mother Nature. I chose to focus on the definition of nature as "the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations." 

I continued to look at photos I had taken in the last few years on my walks and travels--that showed how I interpreted the theme of nature. I could not decide on a single photo that told my story, so I selected 24 of my favorites. I chose to collage them. Below is my completed quilt (22.5 inches by 21.5 inches) I call NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY.

I challenged myself to move out of my comfortable piecing techniques. The idea of film negatives (from bygone times, when I was a kid and a young mom) where we took photos and didn't discover the results until they were returned from developing and printing. It is so much easier now, delete the photo that does not meet our expectations, save those we want on a hard drive, CD, memory stick--or, the Cloud! To be printed when we desire and how we desire.

To read the details on how I tackled sewing this quilt, visit my blog HERE.