Nature's bounty - cultvated and wild

Journal challenge continues - seeds

Having made my first six mini- quilts on the theme of  pollution, covering plankton and blue-green algae, I’m now moving on to seeds, taking a lot of inspiration from this incredible book by Rob Kesseler, and Wolfgang Stuppy.

The relationship to the overall theme of pollution in my journals this year is through two things.

First, 60% of the energy intake of the population of the world is from only three crops: rice, maize and wheat. Within these crops, biodiversity has decreased dramatically. If an untreatable plant disease, or an unknown pest damages any of these crops, many people will starve. With increasing levels of pollution, plants become less resilient and robust, and therefore less able to resist disease and pests.

Second, the Global Seed Vault, set up as a bulwark against catastrophic worldwide disaster, flooded this year, due to completely unexpected increases in temperature in the Arctic.

Trying to use my own source materials for this part of the series, I’m working on seeds that have parachutes, as it feels like the world needs a parachute at the moment. I think this is a Goat’s beard rather than a dandelion.

Stencilling with white paintstick and a freezer paper stencil to try to get the airiness of the seed head.

Detail

Stitching to come!

 

End(ish) of July - I'm still catching up with June

Blue-green algae series number 3. Block-printed cloth, hand-dyed background, machine quilted. The blue-green algae strand has 3 or 4 graduated layers of wadding sewn within it.

Now on to July, and I need to decide whether to start the "Seed"series or the "Bacteria"series.

Too much inspiration about microscopic detail from a visit to the Whitworth Gallery to see "Verso" by Cornelia Parker and the astonishingly lush and complex paintings by Raqib Shaw.

May journal - still in fresh water

I’ve got very behind posting about this year’s journal quilts.  May is still on the theme of blue-green algae.

Testing out prints in the sketchbook with acrylic paint

Trying out different way of appliquéing silk, rouleaux strips

Final piece

Returning to normal life with a lap quilt

My relative’s suffering post-stroke has now ceased and we had her funeral on Friday. Very proud of my son, who even though very distressed,  was able to get up and speak about her positive impact on his life.

Shuffling through some old hand-dyes, ( in the same colour palette as here ) and discovering some leftover hearts from the Alice quilt, led to an urge to get them stitched together.

Appliquéing the hearts on the tray-dyed cloth

Composing the  7 inch blocks on he temporary design wall.

There was not enough of the variegated solid ( a contradiction in terms?) so I had to fudge the edges a bit and lose some corners, therefore not one for the perfectionists I think.

Not bad for a sunny afternoon.  Five years since the cloth was dyed, so hopefully the quilting will be faster than that.

Spring greens

So many shapes and shades.