{"id":2986,"date":"2015-02-14T09:31:46","date_gmt":"2015-02-14T14:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=2986"},"modified":"2015-09-16T21:58:40","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T02:58:40","slug":"love-affair-with-a-special-fabric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=2986","title":{"rendered":"Love Affair With a Special Fabric"},"content":{"rendered":"

A very special fabric and I were first introduced in 1990, and I’m still in love with it. \u00a0Its a cotton, \u00a0printed black with irregular tan coin spots, designed by and American designer, Jennifer Sampou for P&B Textiles in the early ’90’s.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was living in the US when it was released, loved it at first sight and bought some on the spot realising it was\u00a0the<\/em>\u00a0perfect border and sashing for this quilt, below, I was making at the time.\u00a0“Through The Windows of My Mind” 1990, 256cm sq.<\/em>\u00a0became one of the earliest\u00a0\u00a0Colour Memories<\/a><\/span> quilts, inspired by the vegetation colours and landscape features of the remote tent camps we lived in for a couple of field seasons in the Northern Territory. This time, 1975-6, I now refer to as our Tent Period, and to me this quilt says it all.<\/p>\n

\"Through<\/a><\/p>\n

Several years later, I saw this fabric remaindered somewhere in the USA at $3\/yd, so naturally I bought the remaining half bolt. \u00a0Although this fabric design was released in several colourways, the tan\/black certainly is evocative of Australia’s sunburnt landscape and our national sense of colour; plus clearly in the minds of some it also referenced the dot paintings of some of our indigenous artists. \u00a0As Jennifer and her range were clearly American I am sure this is happy coincidence, and I think the black\/tan colourway was actually too hard for American quiltmakers to use with their totally different ‘national colour palette’ – no wonder it was remaindered, imho. \u00a0Having about 9m of this fabric now, I began work on this 2m sq work, “Desert Wind” 1995<\/em>, and I wish I had $1 for every time someone said something like “Oooh, so you do Aboriginal quilts, too !!”<\/p>\n

\"Desert<\/a><\/p>\n

I understand the comment of course, but it’s never been said about this next one though, which to my mind might be more deserving. \u00a0Its title\u00a0“Kimberley 2”<\/em>\u00a02002 \u00a090cm x 110cm<\/em> refers to the Bungle Bungles rock formation located in the Purnululu National Park<\/a> \u00a0<\/span>up in the Kimberley region of Australia.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Kimberley<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I also used it as a background fabric to the blocks in this next quilt, “New Directions” 2002 \u00a096cm x 84cm \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>in which the lines and arrows represent people coming to our ancient continent from all directions over its entire \u00a0human history: the black\/tan of course here signifies the original immigrants, our indigenous people who crossed the land bridges from Asia \u00a0perhaps at least 60,000 years ago.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a><\/p>\n


\n<\/a>I still have about a metre of the fabric and eke it out, \u00a0and there are plenty of small bits in my scrap bag so pretty well every Ebb&Flow quilt has a little in it somewhere. \u00a0Some of it went into a bed quilt for our daughter a few years back, and there’s some on our bed, too. \u00a0I kick myself when I think of the 4 metres I used on the (never seen) back of\u00a0“Desert Wind” . \u00a0\u00a0<\/em>I guess I naively assumed at the time that such a marvellous fabric would always be available … well of course, I now know that’s not true ! \u00a0 But what is true is that every now and then a fantastic fabric will come into my orbit; \u00a0I will instantly emotionally bond with it and recognising it as special, will buy as much as I can, at least 3 metres if possible. \u00a0I always make sure I have a credit card or some cash on me when I’m out and about in likely places. \u00a0Most important of all, I know I will use it because I love it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A very special fabric and I were first introduced in 1990, and I’m still in love with it. \u00a0Its a cotton, \u00a0printed black with irregular tan coin spots, designed by and American designer, Jennifer Sampou for P&B Textiles in the early ’90’s.   I was living in the US when it was released, loved it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[227,247,295,184],"class_list":["post-2986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-colour-memories","tag-evocative-fabrics","tag-inspiration","tag-strip-patterns"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-Ma","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2986"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3406,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986\/revisions\/3406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}