A Gathering of Keruru

Learning to thread paint really changed my focus for quite a while. This quilt was begun in a workshop - the keruru (native wood pigeon) sitting on a wool felt log at the bottom left was made in this workshop. The keruru were made individually and then appliqued on. My quilt took on a life of its own and morphed from the class ‘sample” into this quilt. The flowers on the stylized cabbage tree are strings of pearl beads stitched onto strips of white fabric and applied. I can remember at the time of making this looking out for cabbage trees that were coming into flower to get the form of the flower branches sort of correct. The clematis flowers at the top right are also thread painted with the lianas made from textured yarn.

I remember I learnt a lot of other of textile techniques in this workshop. It was the fisrt time I had used raw edge applique - leaves of the cabbage tree and the process of creating the wool log was interesting. Wool sliver dyed in various colours was laid out on a background fabric and covered with water soluble laundry bags. This was then stitched over both horizontally and virtically. Once the water soluble bags were washed away, I was left with a substrate that was very like moss covered logs. Without the water soluble the wool felt would have caught in the presser foot of the machine and been almost impossible to stitch. It is a technique i will use again when I begin my series on tree bark textures

The quilt is free machine quilted. It marks a move in my journey from this sort of technique and into free style design