This is the one I struggled to finish - not the best shot. It's the quilting that took the time. Made of layered scrim over yellow-green satin (hand-dyed) for the big fern and grey silk overlaid with dyed silk organza for the dark fossil-ferns. I ended up liking the back more than the front, but there you go...
The title is Survival of the Fittest as for me ferns are a potent symbol of survival and renewal (and they are actually great survivors - having been around since the Jurassic era, though the ones in my garden are mere youngsters, having only been around for a hundred years or so.
Next is another fern one - made near the end of 2009, a sort of companion piece to the quilt chosen for Contemporary Quilt's Breakthrough exhibition, which will also feature at Festival of Quilts:
This one's called Nature's Blueprints - with Improvisations and attempts to celebrate the ways in which ferns are not - as many people think - fractals but in fact vary greatly from one frond to the next; this capacity for improvisation is a key factor in their success.
The final quilt of the three (photographed in the car on the way to the P.O. is a double-sided miniatureusing hand-dyed silk organzas and nets over silk-painted pelmet vilene (the shadowy trees in the background deliberately show through from the other side). Unfortunately this had to be finished off rather hurriedly and some of the stitching has suffered as a result (quilting layers of sheers, especially silk nets, is not the easiest job in the world). A pretty piece rather than anything very special but I actually manage to like this one! The trees are drawn from real ones in Wytham Woods, the title is Wildwood - Spring and Autumn and the label is pinned on so it can be easily removed - I understand this will be done before it is shown to the public (I hope)
