Jean and Ben’s wedding gift quilt

A3 size, this small wall quilt started with a vase – as have the others posted recently. The vase made from transparent fabric was shaped after a lovely glass rose vase, spherical and tapering in at the top, given to me many years ago by my dear sister Judi, the mother of my beautiful niece, and bride-to-be, Jean. An idea for the background on which to place the vase presented as a seascape. They live seaside. As always, ideas morphed – the fabrics used morphed more exactly and earlier ones discarded: but the theme remained: that of a full moon over Port Phillip bay.

I decided to dispense with anything resembling a cloth on a table, preferring to let the vase ‘float’. The next most important issue was to place the cut flowers in the vase, which I’d already decided would be roses. It started with layering various white fabrics to build up the blossoming of one main feature rose. Eventually that project was put to one side (no doubt to blossom into a quilt at a later date) in favour of a bunch of white roses. It was assembled from cutting up a piece of lace I had fortuitously kept amongst the container marked ‘non-cottons’. It was quite an elaborate piece of embroidered fabric that I felt gave pomp, ceremony and gravitas to the occasion. And, Jean’s bridal bouquet was of beautiful musk-coloured roses in bloom.

Usually the naming of the quilts comes after completion, though names are thrown up during the process of construction. As a quilt to commemorate the special occasion of the commitment by two people, Jean and Ben to each other in marriage, it became “Love blossoms: love blooms”, (with active verbs rather than nouns)…though I’m still not satisfied that the title covers such a special moment in life! And what a wonderful wedding it was...congratulations Jean and Ben!

vase #3: "Evening's twilight"

Vases are receptacles of life and memory and offering new ideas. The attraction of archaeology has always been an underlying love influence in my life. I’m not sure where it came from, but is clearly linked to a love of unearthing history – and in the case of archaeological findings, pre-history, which I have engaged with from the perspective of women in prehistory, from my Masters and into the PhD focussing on Earth’s and women’s creations. I have not counted the number of vases that I have in my home – maybe even more than thirty if you define a vase as a receptacle for flowers. For me that includes glass candlestick holders, a carafe and other receptacles that might suit the need to bring flowers into the house. Others have history attached: a large glass one of my mother’s won as a golf trophy, and other small ones for tiny bouquets that may have gone back to her family. There is a unique tall ceramic design of the sixties, given to me for my fortieth. Then there is a wide variety of collectibles, from the small cylindrical specimen vase in cobalt blue, a 1975 souvenir from the famous glass factory in Venice and never used. Another very special and unique vase in shade of whirling blues is by the glass blower Colin Heaney of Byron Bay. The rationale for acquiring others became more personal over the years, re-visioning the significance of memories, being on the path to developing philosophies, and responding to pure beauty. My mother's blue vase formed the shape for the latest in the vase series. It contains flowers that a friend has called 'crysanthimums from outer space'.

Named after a time in the daily cycle of Earths' travel around Sun, after much contemplation of possibilities, I finally decided to name “twilight”, being the liminal times of before sunrise and sunset, when the atmosphere is only partially lit by either arising sun or the setting sun – though the usual reference is to the latter. Here there is neither total darkness nor total darkness, thereby presenting an ending, and a beginning.