I made two small pieces to submit to Quilt Canada, a national quilt conference held every year, this time, in Vancouver.. The theme is Rewire, which I have interpreted as coming out of a time of revelation and change.

Nature Prevails is a response to the past two years when the world has suffered from a pandemic that has killed 6 million people globally so far. This has brought home climate change, globalization, and the fact that the planet could likely survive better without us. Everything is interconnected, forcing us to see our actions as having global consequences, an idea we have not really had to grapple with as a species before. No matter how much optimism we have, we must recognize nature as the ultimate force we can either work with sustainably or thwart to our detriment. I have tried to show this by printing viruses on the bottom section under the strings, and romantic (and optimistic?) branches of leaves above them.

The Eye of the Beholder is an acknowledgement that there are different perspectives on the current state of the world with regards to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and our experience of climate change. The images of the eye and the swirl of feathers are printed from lino blocks I made for former print projects. Reusing what I have on hand is part of the refocusing of my attention on the use of material and how it affects and is affected by the crises mentioned above. This quilt and my other submission, the Nature Prevails quilt, are intended as a diptych, together summing up the issues and anxieties of the moment.

I am starting to make quilts that are entirely improvised from the beginning to end with no specific design in mind. The quilt develops as I cut and sew.

I am also making quilts in the Kawandi style, meaning each scrap is sewn onto the batting and back from the outside edge in, working from right to left in a circular fashion. The straight stitch pattern holds the scraps in place as you go so by the time you are in the middle, the quilt is almost complete. Four “flowers” need to be added to the corners at the end. These are small squares folded in four and sewn just at the centre to the tip of each corner. This photo shows the process partway along.