Trixi's Quilts Part 3: A quilt for The Very Last Flower of Spring

Although this is my final post in 'Trixi's quilts' - (the quilt I'm making for Shira probably won't be finished for another few years) - this is actually the first full-size quilt I made:


We have this beautiful jacaranda tree growing over our back fence. In late spring it's covered in tiny purply-mauve flowers which drop all over the ground. The flowers and the dappled light beneath the tree remind me of the way I wanted to scatter the hearts to get a 'fallen leaves' or 'fallen flowers' effect:


I intended to give this quilt to Yiscah for her 8th birthday in 1996:


...and I wanted it to reflect the things that she loved at that time...I took this drawing from the first page in her sketch book:



Hubby was teaching her to play guitar so I lightly quilted in a guitar. I like the idea of having to look awhile at something before you can see everything that's there:


The materials are getting nicely worn through years of use:


This is part of a poem by the early Australian poet, Bango Patterson. We would make the poems into songs that she could play on her guitar...this one was her favorite when she was little:


This close-up shows those little details that you have to look for in order to see:


I quilted pictures of her favorite characters and objects - Snoopy, Woodstock, starfish-flowers, rainbows, etc - around the border of the quilt:


Flopsy was our very affectionate very intelligent very loved Angora rabbit...she, of course, has a square all of her own...and if you look you can just see the long grass she loved...and she probably would also have happily nibbled on that jacaranda flower:


You don't find this out till years later but it's just as much fun looking back and seeing all the things you put into a quilt and had forgotten were there as it is making the quilt in the first place. It's a bit like looking at old photographs:


The 8th birthday quilt was finally completed 3 years later than I planned...still, Yiscah never seemed to mind...she was actually born on the very last day of spring and always liked to call herself "the very last flower of spring"...somehow it suits her:

Little Known but True

Ever since my girls were old enough to rummage around the garden by themselves they have been entranced by fairies. Especially my oldest daughter, Shira, who is now 26 and works as an art teacher at high school. She was, and still is, always drawing fairies.

We used to make up stories for her about Ringwandl (who was a fairy) and her friend Winkybar (who was an elf). I remember she came to us once - I can't remember how old she was but she was still very little - and told us about a nightmare she kept having about wolves chasing her. Hubby (who is the household expert in dreams) told her that next time it happened she should ask in her dream for Ringwandl to come and help her. Funny thing was it worked. The next time she was cornered she called out for Ringwandl who just appeared out of nowhere and magically opened a door in the back of the cave where she was trapped and they escaped together. She was really excited to tell us that dream...after that I don't think she ever had those nightmares again.

All this family fairy lore came back to mind the other day when I went with a friend whose daughter goes to a Steiner school to make what they call "Wee Folk". Mine now belongs to her daughter Indigo. Making this "wee person" for Indi reminded me of a little known but true fact about fairies that Winkybar once told us. Fairies are always thought to love flowers (which they do), and are therefore, always pictured with flowers and wreaths, but what's not widely known is that many fairy tribes also value rusted iron very highly...that's right, rusted iron. According to Winkybar, they grind it into a fine powder to make the beautiful russet dye that they use for their clothing...and these traditional fairy dyes are one of the main reasons that they are so well camouflaged and so rarely seen in their forest homelands. Anyway, Indie was kind enough to lend me her little friend so that I could post a picture to correct the "flower-only" image of fairies:


And here's one of Shira's fairies from the family ethnographic collection of fairy tribes:


Needleess to say her drawings never tended to emphasize flowers but usually depicted fairies involved in very everyday chores...actually, they were usually things that Shira herself liked doing...


...and now that I look at them again I can see that Shira's fairies have always borne a suspicious resemblence to her...Shira is very petite and...well I'll show you what I mean...here are some 'self-portrait' drawings she did when she was studying: