Camouflage In the Oasis

This quilt was quite simply an accident. Back in July 2021, I was rummaging through my scrap bins and found a large, rectangle floral piece by Kaffe. I’m not even sure how it got there—Lourdes knows I’m not exactly a Kaffe enthusiast, let alone a floral fanatic! But there I was sliding that piece of fabric onto my design wall wondering what I could do with it. 

This was all after finishing up my Rainbow Mountains quilt which was quite prescriptive piecing. I always like to switch gears after each project, so at the same time I had been creating improvisational slabs just to get the creative juices flowing. I put these on the wall with the Kaffe floral, along with some other orphan blocks. (Sidebar, this is my PSA for having a design wall as it allows you to embark on a bit of fabric play!) Then suddenly, there I was starting a new quilt. 

As I stepped back, head cocked to one side, I realised that my fabric pieces had started to resemble something I was all too familiar with. Here I was back in the Land O’ Dicks. Ah, bless. Colour me surprised! But since I was already here, I thought I might as well lean into it and see what happens. After all, I doubt anyone had ever seen a Kaffe used in such an upright manner. So I proceeded with mixing and matching unexpected floral fabrics with swaths of more improv in various complimentary colour ways. As my design wall filled with more—well, dicks—certain focal colours started to emerge. Just like the phalluses, they were getting bigger. 

This is when I started to think about how these dicks could disappear into the rest of the assemblage. Don’t you wish you could make certain dicks in your life disappear this easily!? I pushed and pulled the pieces around my design wall, and much like the whole experience, the quilt started to reveal itself even more. Through the shapes and the colours, I started to see a landscape emerge. This quilt was leading me on such an unexpected journey! Now that I finally knew the approach, I could really work my hands around the subject matter. 

With this new confidence in my abilities–a creative Viagra, if you will–I pieced and improv-ed with abandon. I included cheeky squirts, suggestive novelty prints, and let the shapes and colour lead the eye around the quilt. Most of all, I just allowed myself to have fun with a subject matter that is very rarely seen in the quilt world. With this original spirit, that’s how I got from one piece of Kaffe floral fabric to the final quilt top, Camouflage In the Oasis. 

The long arm quilting was done by my favourite, Leanne Harvey of Mount Vincent Quilts. I knew she would really get me and this quilt. When deciding on how to proceed, I asked her to give me a simple, on-point grid that would allow all this wide jumble of piecing to shine through. I also requested a few thread changes throughout of green, pink and blue to compliment the various landscape focal areas. She obliged with humour and abandon!

I wrapped the whole thing in a black binding to finish it off. It was at this stage that this quilt was ready for its next grand adventure! This quilt really wanted to be a bit of a show-off, so I had slyly submitted it to the Sydney Quilt Show. Thankfully it was accepted without too much hesitation, and it spent last weekend hanging surrounded by 300+ other quilt friends. I attended the show as a white-glove volunteer to make sure none of the visitors got too handsy with any of the quilts. (That being said, my quilt would have rather quite enjoyed that!) Overall, the show was a resounding success.

The most exciting part was eavesdropping on the comments and looks that visitors had about my quilt. Many times throughout the show I would catch people smirking, chuckling, and/or scowling as my quilt revealed itself for them. Any of these reactions are the best compliment I could have as an artist. So often quilts are simply looked at with a, “Oh, that’s pretty,” response as the viewer strolls by. If someone is having an emotive response–even one of disgust–to my quilt, well that means I’ve done my job. Not all quilts need to be just pretty. They can be comical, subversive, passionate, anything you want them to be, and we should all strive for that goal.

Title: Camouflage In the Oasis
Size: 59″ x 69″
Pattern: Improvisational piecing with intent
Fabric: Molli Sparkles curated bundle
Piecing: Machine stitched on Juki TL-98P with Aurifil 50wt, White 2024
Quilting: Long arm quilting by Mount Vincent Quilts
Binding: Hand stitched with Aurifil 40wt, Black 2692
Backing: Speckled in Turquoise by Rashida Coleman-Hale for Ruby Star Society
Timing: July 2021 – August 2023
Favourite Part: Dicks on a quilt that make people have the feels!