Wild Arum

This is a quilt I made maybe six years ago now - and it was given to a friend as part of a barter,
my creative time for her emotional support and the time that takes!!

It began life as a single inch scrap of material - the sort that gets sent to you for
ordering via the post! That set the colour scheme and the theme for this quilt as
the scrap was a stylised print of the arum flower.

The patchwork block was taken from a quilting magazine but I then decided to add my own applique block which depicted an image of a local wild plant 'Lords and Ladies', 'Cuckoo Pint' ....
or in otherwords the wild Arum.
I still took this to be an image of peace as the stucture of the plant is the same as the white 'Peace Lily' often sold as a houseplant.

As is my wont the border include a classic celtic design, the celtic knot, used as a repeat
with the diamond motif picking up the repeat from the central quilted section.

In the centre was the panel that for me was the main 'thrust' of this quilt so to speak, my own large celtic knot and, as I was stitching this, the following thoughts kept streaming through my mind.....

In the eternal knot that marks our lives,
where we continuously follow our paths and cover so many 'miles' -
do we in fact travel so far?

Always at the centre is ourselves ,
need we wander all these pathways - well, I guess that is experience
and hopefully wisdom......
but always what is nearest is the space 'that is'....ourselves.
Shouldn't we let the search move inwards and always there, at the centre,
is that thing we call Peace!

So there she is...... Wild Arum - peace lily,
hope you like!

The Silken rose

This is a small quilt that I stitched a number of years ago now......
but it still sits waiting for a home!
I wanted to have a go at wholecloth quilting but decided on this cot-size piece I suppose it would be called - it sits on top of a double bed and just covers the bottom half.

I used an oyster pink dupion silk and stitched with a matching silk thread.
The design just seemed to happen really but I had been admiring a cross-stitch pattern for the rose window at York Minster at the time - the cross-stitch never happened but I so enjoyed making this quilt.... even if the seed stitch in the centre-piece drove me nuts!

I've found it quite difficult to get a decent phot of it but I like this one because it shows the lovely sheen of the silk and picks up on the play of light and dark on the stitching and pattern
that is is one of the ouotcomes of quilting that I love so much.

Someday I might be adventurous and try a larger piece!!!!!

Quilt - Dance of the Snowdrop

Here is the flower which to me is an expression of the joy of new life that comes to this part of the world each spring with the emergence of this, the beautiful and very delicate snowdrop. When the world is still grey and the gound cold and often hard, unbelievably this tiny flower pushes through and nods its delicate head in the heavy winds.

I love the pure whiteness of the petals, the amazing bright green that edges the tiny inner trumpet, the way there is only the tri-petal shape to create this little wonder which hangs from an arching stem that seems so tiny and yet proves to be so sturdy.....

This following octagonal quilt is an expression of the joy I find in this flower, I was inspired to begin having completed spinning some yarn in the early spring one year - a green dyed alpaca blend that was soft and fine.
This described the edging of the snowdrop flower for me and then gave me the base to follow with the green and white colour scheme - why octagonal, not planned it simply evolved!

It took a while to complete being hand-stitched throughout so the first photo of completion happened in the summer months!

The design of the trisceles came from an actual drawing of a celtic artifact I found in a favourite book of mine and echoed the tri-shaped nature of the snowdrop - and the couching with my green yarn created 'the dance' on the quilt.

I then built on the base design by drawing in and quilting the outline of the snowdrop flower...
the central star was a 'compass' that speaks of all the directions that can be taken in our lives...

A further echo of 'three' was having that number of bands in the design, the central circle or 'dance', another band of white running around that and the third and last border that picked up the green and was itself quilted with another trisceles 'running' design.

Dance of the Snowdrop

We speak of the three,
Light of life,
love of the heart
and breath of the wind.



Hope you like!

The Hedgerow

Along lanes of old we linked our arms

Flowing like streams across the land.

In our hearts we found joy

And smiles would abound,

We would dance through the seasons

Hand in hand.

We gave shelter and bore fruits,

Our roots ran deep in the ground.

Our flowers laid trails for the bees,

We gave sound through the birds

And the rustle of leaves,

And whispered our thoughts

To lay them into your hands.

Would that you cared and sang of this treasure,

Would that you learned to hold on.

Take heed while you can,

Step gently, hold softly

Take our wish to your hearts –

That we will continue to gaze on this land

And hold hands with your children

For futures untold.

Keeping faith with our nature,

To understand.

( ash - 2005 )

A small quilt that I stitched in response to the verse. The centre was a simple patchwork of squares in soft hues, I love the simple grid pattern where you have to try and make sure the points all match!!

The border was a hand drawn design that depicted the plants that are often found in our hedgerows - hawthorn, blackberry, ivy, honeysuckle and in one corner I stitched a little bee. Such an important little insect in the survival of our world!