So it’s been a few weeks since I began this story of quilt making.  I feel quite nervous to be talking about these quilts with an audience, having spent so much time working on them, worrying over them and fretting in general.  I wrote the story below earlier in the year, when I was getting ready for Domestic Frontier, where this quilt made it’s debut.

The design of this quilt is inspired by early American quilting and also Native American textiles. My father’s mother immigrated to Australia from America in 1943 and my father and his brothers and sisters will swear up and down that we have Native American Sioux heritage. Looking at old photos of my grandmother it certainly seems possible and I am quite fascinated by this idea and I hope to explore it further in my designs. I am yet to visit the part of America my grandmother came from, but I’ve spent a little time in the states, and it is one of those places I find myself impossibly drawn to. It was in the US that I first realised my love of mountains; after years of tuning out when my father talked endlessly about his mountain climbing days.

The flying geese quilt block is speculated to have been used as code by slaves during the civil war, as a reminder to follow the geese north in the summertime and escape their bondage. Whether this is true or not, the triangle feels to me to be a symbol of both freedom and safety, it is geese with their wings spread, it is mountains reaching for the stars and it is the arrowheads used to hunt food and fend off predators.

I chose to dye this quilt with Indigo and Fustic, because one, they look great together, but also because they ground each other. They are the earth and the sky and in different lights they take turns on being both strong and gentle. A lioness and her cub. I feel like this quilt is a protector, it seems like a kind of armour and I imagine it keeping it’s owner safe and warm.

I do design both a front and a back before I begin the dye work for my quilt, and my favourite moment of this quilt is actually found on the back. Tiny variations flitter like dappled sunlight in the fustic dyed cotton and it makes me think of hot summer days, lying in the shade next to a lake, listening to the sounds of the bush.

This quilt was created over a period of 6 weeks from June 12, 2014 to July 31st 2014. It is the result of 26 hours of designing, dyeing, sewing, ironing, washing, and quilting. It is not perfect, but it is just right.

Happily this quilt has found it’s home. And even more happily it is going to a FAMILY. Just as I imagined it would. It really does bring tears to my eyes to know it will be loved well.

Photos in this post taken by Lillie Thompson.

I am so excited! It was announced today that I am a finalist in the Etsy Design Awards!!

A few weeks ago I decided to enter one of my new products, the summer quilt into the home and lifestyle category of the competition. Just to see how it went.

I am so incredibly thrilled that it went well! It’s really wonderful to have been selected as a finalist, especially when there are so many other amazing designers out there, creating great things.

The competition is judged by an excellent panel of experts, all of whom I admire greatly and I am so pleased that I have this opportunity for them to see my work. I hope they like it!

There is also a people’s choice prize which could see me flying to NYC to the etsy headquarters to do cool things, so I’d love it if you could take the time to vote for me.

It feels like a great achievement to make it this far, it would be a dream come true to win!

I’ve always been fascinated with quilts. There is something about the repetitive nature of quilt design that just makes me happy, and for me, quilting was the starting point of everything I know about sewing.

I first tried sewing when I began high school. My school prescribed to some weird gender based division of classes for year 7 and the girls did home economics and sewing, and the boys did woodwork and metalwork. Then after 2 terms we switched. It was pretty terrible as I recall, and I truly HATED being made to do cooking and sewing. I was a total tomboy and i was incredibly aggravated that I had to go and do “girly” things.

Fast forward to now and i love both of those things,  how times have changed!

In 2008 I decided the time was ripe for me to make my first quilt. Before i lashed out and bought myself a sewing machine, I borrowed an old janome from my friend Sarah and set about sewing together a cot quilt for the child I hoped to one day have.

By the time I reached the quilting stage I realised I already wanted to do another, so I handed Sarah back her sewing machine and bought myself the cheapest one I could lower the feed dogs on and embarked on my freehand quilting journey. It lasted all the way through a total of 4 quilts, and by the last one I was massively pregnant. So that was the end of that!

I kept up with my sewing though, trying out many things, and I am ever thankful to quilting. It taught me to sew a straight line, that is for sure.

Over the last few months I have returned to quilt making. It’s a good feeling to make something so substantial and invest a lot of myself into, and I’m looking forward to making many more. I’ve got lots of designs stuck in my head that I need to create. They’ll all take time, but as the saying goes “anything worth doing, is worth doing properly.”