New Quilt part II

Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve never gotten into the goddess thing. But in my personal study of Egyptology, I have found my personal goddess; she is Maat. Rarely seen as a human in Egyptian artwork, she is usually depicted as a feather. You will see a feather at the top of this Sycamore Fig tree, she represents balance. As an artist, wife and mother, it is always a challenge to maintain a balance between the elements of my life. If you are a quilter, I'm sure you understand the concept of balance.

The water lilies or lotus are merely an extension of much of my early work. Here in this quilt they are water lilies with an ancient twist. They are partly embroidered, and partly quilted. The little fish are swimming in the pond, may eventually become someone’s dinner. They are simply cut from commercial fabric, the clamshell quilting makes them come alive.

Some of these were left from an earlier quilt, Egyptian Garden I. http://www.annfahl.com/ann2/quilts.php?key=122  I practiced the embroidery on a smaller beaded piece called Lotus Garden. It can be found in my Small Quilt Gallery. I love all the seed beads, and my quilting dances around all the shapes.   You can find a large image and a detail shot of this quilt at http://www.annfahl.com/ann2/quilts.php?key=123   

So finally, here is the actual quilt, EGYPTIAN WATER GARDEN II; which is related to so many other of my quilts!

Here is a close up of some of the quilting near the trunk of the tree. I’ve created more branches of leaves in the quilting motif.

The quilting of this piece was very creative and energizing for me. I tested almost every idea for quilting motifs on a smaller sample, before I actually quilted on this large piece. This pretesting was key to the success of the final work. When I was sure it was right, then I jumped right into the real thing, and had a great time filling the areas with the appropriate idea. I call it “dancing on my quilt” just like the title of my book.

A little too late, I found one of the original sketches I used for the quilt. This is a xerox copy of the sketch from the 1820's, in the book (titled Treasures of Egypt and Nubia by Ippolito Rosellini), where I colored in the background with colored pencil. You can compare the results.

Thanks for reading.

Ann Fahl