The continuing story of the quilt that was born in Australia
My brother and mom made a lot of stops on their way to Adelaide. They flew into Sydney for my daughters wedding, stayed for a week or so in Western Sydney and then came down to Adelaide with me where I was living at the time. Of course they hit the highlights, the tourist places that everyone visits when they come to Australia. Even I did when I first arrived! I was lucky enough to find fabric that made perfect patches…
The four corners of the apocolypse quilt- hehe, sorry it IS 2020, but these four corners were placed on the quilt nearly 10 years ago – are of iconic Australian places and animals. This patch is the Sydney Harbour Bridge and is recognisable as the ocean-side entry to Sydney.
Sydney Opera House is not only outstanding architecture in Australia, but is listed as a World Heritage site, alongside the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China and the ancient Pyramids of Egypt. I remember visiting once and looking down the side of the Opera House into the ocean and seeing SO many jellyfish – huge groupings, I discovered are called blooms!
The Kookaburra (aka the laughing jackass). The completed block has a small black button with red legs, to symbolise the Redback spider, star of ‘There’s a redback on my toilet seat‘ song! During our Christmas dinner that year, I pulled out the laptop and found as many classic Aussie songs as I could. They found it funny until I pointed out my inside/outside toilet (I lived in an amazing old house) was a great place for spiders! One of the sounds I miss most is hearing Kookaburra’s in the morning.
One of my funniest memories of kangaroos wasn’t on this particular trip, it was before my mom came over. I had been a citizen for about 15 years, and while not an uncommon sight, they weren’t normally seen day-to-day. However, there was a park down the road from where I lived and after I had just denied in a call to my mom that we have kangaroos roaming the streets like deer, guess what I happened to see on a walk down my street? Yes, indeed!
My mom was tickled to see this Kangaroo, even if it was in a zoo. How often do you get to pet the cuter half of the Australian Coat of Arms?? And to give you some more classic Aussie songs, click on the link to listen to Rolf and the Beatles do “Tie me Kangaroo Down” – if you’ve never heard it, you’re welcome for the earworm! (The original version.)
Keeping to the theme of Australian animals, this block is a brolga (a type of crane) in a billabong. This was eventually quilted with both spirals (a recurring theme in my quilts since it’s often symbolic of change, evolution, wisdom and infinity) and short straight stitches resembling rain from clouds. Mom initially thought the birds were emu’s, as her zoo visit included an ‘attack’ by an emu for a treat in her hand. Emu’s have very small brains and tend to think buttons, hair, and anything held in the hand is food and they want it. That can be frightening, their beaks are big and the feet are bigger and both look like weapons close-up!
Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia, is a fascinating place. They have an isolated population of what is widely considered the last genetically pure strain of Italian Ligurian bees. We had dishes of honey ice cream (too sweet for me!), honey sticks and I got myself a hexagon of sweet smelling bees wax to wax threads for hand quilting – used in this quilt, actually! Memories are not just what your mind remembers, but also what your sense of smell remembers. If you want to learn more about the Island, and the bee population particularly, you’ll find one source here. I promise, no earworms! Just the pleasurable buzz of learning new things!
This block brings back fun memories. What can be more Australian than a Koala? Well, there’s the Australian drop-bear, read a history of this elusive critter from the Australian Museum. Beware, elusive as they are, they’re scarier than the Tasmanian Devil, even!
Featherdale Zoo has a strict policy against ordinary mortals cuddling their Koala’s. My brother was standing next to the open enclosure after the educational talk. The big female in the enclosure dropped down from the tree onto the hip-high fence around the trees and climbed directly into my brother’s arms and gave him a cuddle! The Zoo attendant rushed over and told him cuddles were not allowed, and my poor brother had to sputter that he hadn’t actively taken her up. We tease him about his animal attraction and possibly the grey in his beard, and his rounded stomach made her think he was a koala. He really didn’t agree, but what do brother’s know, right?
Later, we rented a cabin on Kangaroo Island, and while we saw plenty of wallaby’s, we were THRILLED one late afternoon to see a large male climb down a gum tree and galumph across the golden fields to another tree. Even after 18 years or so, that was the closest I’d ever come to a wild Koala, and certainly a first for my mom. Not my brother, though, since this was after his cuddle-up.
My brother really wanted to do a scuba dive when he was in Adelaide. There was a well known dive site not far off-shore where an old ship had been deliberately sunk. Lucky for him, I knew someone who had a scuba suit and tanks he could borrow, so he could join a dive group. While I’m not entirely sure he saw any stingrays or skates, I admit i just loved the pattern and just had to include it in memory of that dive.
There’s going to be at least one or two more in this series of posts. It’s been great fun going back and looking at the blocks and my mom making them. My brother will show up in photo’s next post doing some fashion modeling for us! Stay tuned, it’s worth it…
