Thursday, October 29, 2015

Aussie Landscape - Quilt







With Australian native plants flowering in the garden and glorious calls of Australian birds filling the air, I selected, stamped, cut, and carefully stitched and quilted a melody of beautiful natural Australian designed fabrics. Inspired by the earthy tones and textures of the linen, hemp and organic cotton fabrics and visions of our wonderful wide, open, sunny Australian horizons, ideas for an Australian landscape quilt gradually became reality.





There was some playful exploration of fabric stamping to provide custom made segments for my desired big open sky. I plan to experiment further with fabric stamping and printing in the future.








Clumps of tall, hardy native Kangaroo Paw at a local park mingle beautifully with the large and small Kangaroo Paw prints in the quilt. The far horizons of our sunburnt Australian landscape are beautiful from a distance, filled with interesting plants and details as you look carefully and hold hidden details for those who explore more closely. I tried to capture these three levels of impression with my Aussie Landscape quilt - overall picture, interesting details in prints and textures and a variety of fine details in the hand quilting.


Quilt Details
  
Fabrics: Ink & Spindle offcuts - hand printed. (Ink & Spindle is an Australian boutique textile design and printing house).
Maze & Vale sample pack and selected panels. Maze & Vale is the work of Leslie Keating who designs and screen prints her work by hand in Melbourne Australia.
Umbrella Prints Fanflower fabric - also used for backing the quilt. Umbrella Prints is a small Australian textile house in South Australia, specialising in organic printed fabrics.
Two fabrics from Cloud 9 Fabric's Landscape collection, designed by Ink & Spindle.
Solids fabrics include various shot cottons and organic cottons.
Ink: Permaset Aqua, solvent free, Textile Printing Ink. 
Threads: Scanfil organic cottons
Batting: Hobbs Organic cotton batting.
Quilting: Entirely by hand using mostly Scanfil organic cotton threads.
Size: 40" x 59" (100cm x 150cm).
Completed this week - October 2015.


Sharing at the Blogger's Quilt Festival in the Art Quilt Category.


23 comments:

Susan said...

It's a beautiful and thoughtful composition.....I am looking forward to seeing where your fabric printing goes.

Nilya said...

Karen, this is such a beautiful quilt with a lovely story behind. I would love to sew sometime with such precious fabrics.... sooo well done!!!

Maryse said...

It looks fantastic!

Dirk Rosin said...

super resultat og bilder !!

Elizabeth said...

It's lovely. Wish I could see the detail in person.

Preeti said...

Beautiful quilt! The stamped and stitched details make this so unique!

Janneke said...

Wow, another beautiful quilt and so nice shown with the kangeroo paw and agapanthus on the background.

Barb said...

What a lovely quilt design commemorating your landscape, Karen. I'm admiring not only the quilt but your photography of it. Your quilt-holder is quite photogenic, too.

Karen @ Pieces of Contentment said...

Thank you Barb. My visible quilt holder is 11 year old Miss V, one of my six daughters, the only one with ginger hair. One of my other daughters helped out as well.

Anita Johnson said...

I say this quite often...THIS one is my favorite!

Clair said...

This is simply glorious! I love it to pieces.

DeborahGun said...

This is just the most beautiful quilt ever Karen. You are such a talented lady xx

CapitolaQuilter said...

So pretty up close. I'm glad I came by to check it out form the festival. Gorgeous details.

geanina said...

Beautiful work! Complimenti! ;)

SarahZ said...

Oh my! I so love this! It is so you! I think you accomplished so well the 3 levels you were after! Personally, the detail I love most(from afar) is the large block of Kangaroo Paw on the bottom tier, going up through in smaller pieces. And then your photo with the plant, Kangaroo paw in the foreground...well, I may have swooned just a bit :) So happy this one made it into the festival :)

O'Quilts said...

Brilliant quilt...Great job...wish I had thought of such a lovely thing..

diane b said...

Lovely colours, unmistakably Australian. I also think the hand quilting is great.

Carla said...

This is so gorgeous. Love all the little details. Well done ; )

suzi poland said...

Lovely post and really love your quilts. Thanks for sharing about the printing inks you use as I have a desire to explore this in my work too. Love the effect you've achieved from such simple techniques of rolled paper.

Liz said...

What a stunning piece! And I love that you printed your own fabric, what a clever way to reinforce the theme of your quilt.

Anne / Springleaf Studios said...

I totally agree with Liz. This is just stunning. I love the simplicity of the design and the little touches you added.

blockMquilts said...

Oh, I love this quilt! I've been lucky enough to have traveled to Australia twice for about 6 weeks at each trip to take in this beautiful country. Your quilt perfectly reflects the Australian colours of nature without being too obvious about it. This is a very modern interpretation of your island home. Simply perfect! (I've seen so many quilts of Australia fans using Koala bear and Kangaroo fabric, this is very refreshing!) thanks for sharing! Your love for the nature really comes to live!

Karen @ Pieces of Contentment said...

Hi Daniela, thank you for your beautiful comment. I'm delighted to hear you have traveled to Australia and that you sense I have captured something of my country's natural beauty. The quilt is Australian through and through yet not too literal.

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