As Pandemic Pattern 4 is now completely finished, ready for photography, I now turn to the next in this series. For several months I’ve been wanting to make another work responding to the haunting images we first saw on our screens early in the pandemic. These are in front of us again. As I write, across the border in Brasil, the Manaus variant P.1, is ravaging the population of that country and bringing hospital system to the point of collapse in many areas. Again we’re seeing rows and rows of freshly dug graves in hurriedly cleared jungle or expropriated fields. Uruguay has a rather porous dry land border with Brasil, and with new case numbers rising alarmingly here, the government has just put into effect an emergency vaccinate-everyone program in the towns and cities along the border, hoping it will be strong enough to control the southward spread into this country.

I unexpectedly found some perfect fabric in my cupboard that I’d totally forgotten about. You could ask did I really forget it was there, or was it that when my mind was seriously focused on those rows of graves that I need to say something about, that this fabric leaped off the shelf and demanded to be used as the perfect background? Either way, I’ll need to be cutting several hundred grave shaped pieces of leather, and might even use the frog skins! It’s going to take me the rest of the afternoon to get enough to start. Well, there’s a pandemic on, anyway.

At last, 300+ little leather circles have been hand stitched into place using the wonderful neon threads I have such a stock of. The leather’s mostly red but there are scattered small amounts of magenta and orange. The stitching is mostly neon green but in places I’ve brought in a little red, orange, yellow and pink. In this pic you can see that for all the thread showing on the front, there’s a lot more on the back:

I’m now hand quilting, and as it’s a while since I did any quilting by hand, it took me a while yesterday to get my hand in again, so to speak, but by by dinner time yesterday I’d done about 10%.

Out on the shaded patio, the light’s inadequate for the black on black hand quilting I’m doing, so I’ve retreated up to my sewing room again with the table reading lamp focused on where I’m working. I’m listening to Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and then Persuasion to go now in my rather lengthy but wonderful recorded book, so will soon need to order another …

At last 300+ little leather circles have been appliqued in place using the wonderful neon threads I have such a stock of. Pictured are parts of the back and the front, showing the mostly red but a few scattered magenta and orange leather. The thread is mostly green but I also used small scattered amounts of red, orange and pink and yellow. The reverse side shows that for all the thread showing on the front, there’s much more behind the scenes.

I’m now hand quilting, and as it’s a while since I did any quilting by hand, it took me a while yesterday to get my hand in again, so to speak, but by by dinner time yesterday I’d done about 10%.

Out on the shaded patio, the light’s inadequate for the black on black hand quilting I’m doing, so I’ve retreated up to my sewing room again with the table reading lamp focused on where I’m working. I’m listening to Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and then Persuasion to go now in my rather lengthy but wonderful recorded book, so will soon need to order another …