Camouflage In the Oasis

Welcome to my latest quilt top finish, Camouflage In the Oasis! I started this quilt in July 2021 as a way to clear my brain of some previous prescriptive quilting work. I knew I needed to pivot to some improv work, so I started sewing fabric strips together. I kept sewing, alternating between gentle curves and organic stripes creating larger fabric slabs. As I added some Kaffe florals, and reflected on my Don’t Dick Around Quilt, I wondered if I could use the same phallic motifs in a subversive way. “Hide the dicks in the quilt, and make it pretty.”

So I continued to improv piece with intent; creating movement across the quilt with blended colours and cascading shapes. I turned to traditional piecing like flying geese, triangle-in-a-square, and square patchwork to add familiar shapes for the quilting eye. But they all serve a purpose of leading the viewer around the quilt in a sense of discovery that is at times comical and irreverent. Quilts don’t have to be precious—they can be funny, flippant, subversive—ultimately, whatever you want them to be.

I used mostly solid fabrics–the usuals: Kona, Bella, Pure Elements with a smattering of shot cottons and silk-like finds from Singapore. I’m hoping they don’t disintegrate during the long arm quilting process! Each of the phallic shapes is constructed from a print that emulates or dissolves into the background, much like an animal would into a jungle. Hell, I even used a blue leopard print set across the midnight sky for added effect!

There are a lot of hidden details in this quilt that invite the viewer to look closer–if they’re willing to do so. Directional arrows point out specific lines of movement, and force the eye around the quilt. Segues of colour blocking allow sections of the quilt to bleed into each other which in turn slyly unites the quilt despite initially seeing large swathes of blue, red and green. One of my favourite sections of the quilt is this instance of a green phallus birthing smaller triangles into a larger foreground. “Can’t see the forest for the trees,” has never been so apt!

This quilt top has allowed me some time to play around with motifs and shapes in a relaxed quilt environment. There was no destination, only design elements that I cobbled together to tell a story of colour, momentum and dick. LOL! Ultimately, I want this quilt to invite the viewer to like it for its aesthetic beauty, and then surprise the hell out of them when they start looking a bit closer. Just like the title, Camouflage in the Oasis, dive into the details to drink the waters of this quilt.