It’s amazing, isn’t it, how you come across long forgotten things when you’re looking for something else. Today I was looking for a magazine article I wrote back in 2004 about improvisational piecing and irregular shaped outer edges. I found it, but in that search I came across this gem, dated 2008, but it feels earlier, so perhaps it was updated then. Note to self – perhaps I should put the date into the text of everything! Funnily enough, though, it’s the essence of a submission to present that I recently made to the organisers of next year’s SAQA conference in NZ. Fingers X – clearly I’ve been thinking about this longer than I thought.

“Article – how my work has been influenced by the life I have led – the history and geography of a quiltmakers background! I have spent most of each of the last few years in Uruguay, where my husband’s mineral exploration activity is concentrated in the company he and another Australian founded to search for gold. This means of course that my career as a trailing spouse continues in another place where it is not possible to buy the fabrics which for so long I’ve been used to accessing easily and instantly. But this is not the hardship posting it might sound. 20+ years of Outback living around Australia have taught me to plan ahead, adapt or improvise, and to be patient if I have to order something up from the nearest capital city. Lately, (2008) it has given me the time and mental space to consider all that I have done in quiltmaking; and one thing I have realised is that much of my work can be read as modern or contemporary scrap quilts.

During a particularly cash strapped period, and feeling a little mortified at how my fabrics and scraps had accumulated, I determined not to buy any new fabric for a while; which is not too dificult to stick to if there’s none around.  Experience in Australian Outback living for many years made it easy for me to plan ahead and then be comfortable using what I’d brought across from Australia or down from USA (where the offsprings live). Certainly at first, fabrics were very carefully chosen for enough pre-planned projects to keep me going for as long as I planned to be here, and over this time bags of my scraps gradually relocated here. Every time I return to Australia or come back through the USA I bring a quantity of batting along with plenty of calico and plains to act as fillers, blending fabrics and backings.”

At the time of writing I was working mostly in quilters’ and other 100% cotton fabrics including lovely batiks and designer ranges on the American market, and really I still do, as they suit the way I love to cut and piece. Today, however, I also use a wider array of materials and techniques to make what are still layered ‘quilt’ constructions, ie art quilts, and by early 2005 I had started experimenting with appliqued leather in the surface design on the cotton fabric. Here’s one of my favourites from that time:

At least 10+ years ago, I’m sure, I bought a large piece of a cotton batik print in lovely earthy colours that might possibly be African, and could have been on sale at an art quilt conference, symposium or auction; but unusually for me, I really can’t remember where I got it! But anyway, I have have used some of it in my pieced designs from time to time, and still have about 1.5 m of it intact. Clearly I was inspired to use some of it in this quilt based on variations of a simple cross motif. Some blocks feature the fabric and others feature units cut from black leather. Now, a lot of work had already gone into this quilt before, and for a reason which I don’t remember, I folded it all up and put it in the cupboard, where it has lurked ever since. I was always aware it was there, but during that time I had never taken it out and looked at it, until last week.

That work included marking out a ~15cm square grid of 6 x 8 squares with machine stitching, so the grid is reasonably regular but ‘loose’. I had drawn outlines of all the varied shapes to be used, and those were hand cut from fabric or black leather. Once each block’s pieces were set in place they were individually machine appliqued, and when every block contained something, the whole quilt was layered and pinned together for hand quilting. I had already completed quilting several blocks before I folded it away; so clearly my original intent was to sew a highly textured pattern of french knots and stemmed french knots – two of my favourite stitches. For whatever the reason I abandoned it relatively late in the process, that was unusual for me.

Last week I came across it and took it out, thinking that if I need a large piece of my favourite wool batting while the pandemic is still on, I could unpick the quilting, salvage and re-use the batting and backing pieces, and simply fold up this stupid top and put it back in the cupboard.

Today, though, looking up at it on my wall, I have to say

• I actually rather like it
• have no reason why I shunned it
• I have almost no recollection of making it, but
• of course it is my work
• I will not unpick anything
• and one day I will resume the quilting and finish it.