Song Lines

Bush Picnic: 2013  (Started: 2007)

Finished & photographed....at last!

For simply ages, I had wanted to put together a quilt using the Aboriginal fabrics I’d been gathering.  I was fairly particular and had only purchased fabrics by Aboriginal women artists and designers.  Needless to say, some of the fabrics are just stunning; making it oh, so hard to cut into!

I started collecting these fabrics after a visit to Freemantle in 2002.  In a souvenir shop, of all places, I found the most amazing (but tiny) collection of authentic fabrics.  I’ve mentioned previously that I’d found current selections a wee bit stuffy, so this was definitely a “willy-willy” (dust storm) moment.  My initial selections rested in the garden shed for quite some months before I inadvertently found a new (and closer!) supply, also in a souvenir shop, in Berry (NSW) that same year.  So, my stash grew steadily over the years! 

A close up of both hand & machine quilting

However, finding an appropriate design to feature these wonderful fabrics was not so easy and for me, became something of an issue…  I dallied & dithered; again for some years until finally in 2008, I discovered a “Stars over the Rockies” pattern designed by Judie Rothermel. (Quilters Newsletter Magazine, Mar 2007).  This pattern seemed to meet my need for a design with some larger pieces (so as not to destroy the continuity in those bold designs) yet was complex and interesting enough not to be “the same old thing again”.  Mind you, I had already started cutting out pieces for another pattern, until this change of heart.  Oh well!

Cutting out had started in March 2007 and continued on over the next few years until somehow I managed to get a wriggle on with piecing it together.  I suspect the deadline for the Australia Day Exhibition 2013 had something to do with it, but my quilt went public without being properly finished – a little hand quilting needed finishing.  So, one must compromise when deadlines loom! 

Not quite finished for the Australia Day Exhibition, 2013
Bush Picnic (Right) & Margaret's Hexies (Left)
(Textile Artwork on wall by Cath Phillips)

One point I had overlooked however was the provenance of my fabrics.  I had been busy collecting fabrics but missed noting the artists’ names and design names.  I also have a little information on the various symbols used in the patterns, so more is needed.  Just a little more work to do then…

(In case you are wondering, "The SongLines" is the title of the wonderful travel book written by Bruce Chatwin in 1987.  It, rather like "The Fatal Shore" by Robert Hughes (1986) that I've only recently discovered, made me realise how limited my world view has been & perhaps continues to be only seen through the eyes of Australian history and settlement.  In a way, this viewpoint embodies the isolation of our country.  This cover, a Picador edition (1988), features "Red Landscape" by famous Australian painter Fred Williams. )

Just for the Record:

Quilt Finished Size: 190 x 190cm
Block Sizes: 38cm
Cut in: 17 Mar 2007; adjusted 2008
Pieced & Basted: 2012
Quilted: Hand & Machine 2013
Quilt Type: Judie Rothermel Design
Quilt Finished: Jan 2013
Exhibited: Australia Day, 2013 (part-finished)
Collection: Home# 050
Pattern Name: Stars over the Rockies
Pattern Source: Quilters Newsletter Magazine, Mar 2007
Fabrics Purchased: Special Collection
Fabric Design: Aboriginal Women Designers
Fabric Style: Aboriginal Designs
Materials Type: Printed Cottons
Wadding Type: Cotton
Backing: Pieced using left-over remnants

Provenance

I can’t leave "Tamworth" without commenting on how difficult it has been so far to “recollect” details of my quilts.  Despite leaving a fairly decent paper trail courtesy of TAFE notes, photos, diaries and a feeble attempt to make up a Quilt Album (a bit of a fad in the 1980/90’s) I still find it difficult to date my quilts in detail.  Yes, I do sign and date my quilts – an early “must do” subscribed to by teacher Joc at Queenscliff - but only with the basics.  I’ve since made up a few labels with additional information such as quilt titles and try to embroider this detail rather than just pen it on. 

Keeping an annual appointment diary also helped as has my list preoccupation.  At the end of 1996 I must have decided to write up a wish-list (with pattern details) and added to it my UFO’s, which seemed to be getting out of hand.  Most years since, I’ve made this list-making my New Year’s priority.  That way I can keep a promise to myself to finish off at least one UFO a year (regardless of how much I really dislike it) before surrendering to something new or signing up for an impossible to finish workshop schedule. 

1922 "Wedding Quilt" MJH
NGA Collection

What brought me to comment on the value of labelling quilts?  The Armidale Symposium in 1990 held a Quilt Exhibition (14-19 September 1990) as part of its activities.  Aside from nearly 100 quilts from members and Symposium teachers, the exhibition had a special showing of two 1920's quilts by Mary Jane Hannaford, of Blandford (and also Tamworth), NSW.  Margaret Rolfe mentions an unknown MJH in her 1987 book, Patchwork Quilts in Australia.  At that time little was known of the elusive MJH, however, at least 3 of her quilts were in the safe hands of the Australian National Gallery at that time. (See photos above & below).  Because MJH initialled and dated her works, we now know of a further 4 quilts (6 are now held at the NGA along with a workbook of poems and sketches) and at least one other quilt, owned by a private collector.  Research and information has brought to light her name, her history and a little more of her life details. 

1924 "A Last Day" MJH
NGA Collection

We also have a wonderful on-line resource in the National Quilt Register, so if you have something that could enhance our understanding of early Australian life and textiles, help this resource list to grow. 

It is best then, to follow the advice in just about every quilting book out there and sign and date your work at the very least.  Future family members, quilt historians or owners may just want a little provenance with your quilt legacy left to them. 

Sadly, I don't have any photos from the Armidale exhibition but I did copy down a poem written by MJH.  She was indeed an inspiring and creative spirit from our early history.

Omission

It isn't the thing you do, dear

It's the thing you have left undone,

Which gives you a bit of a heartache

At the setting of the sun.

The tender word forgotten,

The letter you did not write,

The flower you might have sent, dear

Are your haunting ghosts tonight

The stone you might have lifted

Out of a brother's way,

For life is all too short

And sorrow is all too great

And it's not the thing you do

It's the thing you leave undone,

Which gives you a bit of a heartache

At the setting of the sun.

written by Mary Jane Hannaford, 1840-1930

Relocating Egypt

Has Anyone seen Egypt? 

In case you've visited and found the posts on Egypt of interest but can't find them now, they've all safely travelled across the airwaves to a new home on Textile Tourist: The Early Years.  (Now just one blog, Textile Tourist, for sanity's sake. Ed.)

Why?  Well, I've just finished rebuilding my old Vox blog and thought they were better suited living with a pre-2010 travel/textiles blog.  On the Spur can continue to be my album, with added highlights or insights as necessary along that journey. 

Just keeping the troops in order really!  Find the Egypt posts here.

Not that it's ever easy!

Fair Warning

My interests are travel, photography, art history, culture and textiles.  This order of preference can vary on any given day depending on mood, weather, star alignment and interest - amongst other things.  My ramblings are not academic materials just a record for me, in some semblance of order, of our trips away; the things I've seen and done that have, as they say, expanded my world view. 

As I must have dozed off a lot in class, travelling has inspired me to do a little “research” to aid and inform my expeditions.  This means including a bit of background detail, a timeline of important events and finally an “itinerary” of the places and/or monuments we specifically visited.  Also, I will try to include interesting links, references and articles that I have “unearthed” over the years.  I will  try not to digress (well, too much anyway). 

This is a photo of me in Malaya with my friend and neighbour, Shane Holt, so it's not too hard to understand why the travel bug bit me - hard.

Testing Chaos Theory

Well, the kitchen's really gone now...

Last year we decided to forge on ahead with the last 1/3 of our cosmetic renovations.  That meant lounge, dining & kitchen.  All that stuff is now strewn around the rest of the house which we swear has given us a serious list towards the west.  

Mr DIY is nearing the end of laying a brushbox floor and has offered to do my garden shed with the left overs.  Too right! 

The thing is of course, that the shed has to be emptied out.  I am now trying to move rather too “many” boxes of fabric stash, habby, dyeing equipment, silkscreens and picture frames into the house.  Not to mention the odd few sewing machines.  Just where does it all come from?  The other difficulty is trying to make it all look less than it really is…..as you would!  I keep pointing at the frames saying, “They’ll be on the wall soon.”  As if!!  The reality is however, that it could be another month or more before I get to do some sewing or hang pictures.  Sew, what to do?

The answer I’ve decided rests in the many old reference materials that I’ve brought in from my garden shed.  You know, the lot that you might need someday…  As a consequence, I’ve revisited my blog terms of reference to include a couple of additional goals.  It will continue to be a log of one quilter’s progress - that is, mine.  However to add a bit of depth, I plan to include:

a.   Significant influences – those ah-ha moments that set you off exploring down another path.  For some time I’ve read “The Books that Changed Me” in the Sunday paper.  Interesting choices.  What would I choose in my list?  Better yet, what were the occasions that changed my quilting life?

b.   A bit of Art History.  Groan.  Well maybe not all of it.  I’ve kept years (and years) of notes thinking they would come in handy and as we plan to do a bit of touring Europe, I can reacquaint myself with what’s to see and do.  A sort of a Grand Tour inspired to some degree by the indefatigable Sister Wendy and Kevin McCloud.  Only I’ll add my photos as I take them and use words from my notes.  Don’t worry, they’re descriptive and fairly simple.  We weren’t taught to think for ourselves way back then.  My teacher in year 11 described herself (a lot) as “Rubenesque”.  It’s the only thing I remember, except for thinking that that wasn’t much to live up too.

(For anyone wondering where all this is going, be assured that where possible some reference will be made to (serious) resources, including books – remember them?  Main texts used over 7 years of schooling/college were Gardener’s Art through the Ages 1964, Herbert Read’s The Meaning of Art 1931, and Carl Roebuck’s The World of Ancient Times 1966.  College it seems, was slow death by a flood of slides.  A lot of the notes we were given were roneod, a method of copying first introduced in 1906 and still being used in the 70’s.  Remember that smell of metho in the classroom?)