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: