Troubled Waters Quilt

By popular request here is an image of Troubled Waters, the quilt that has been juried into the Made in Europe exhibition organized by SAQA as mentioned on my previous blog post. The quilt had it's starting point last winter, when the rivers, specially the river Tweed here in the Scottish Borders, flooded badly and record water levels were reported all over the country with disastrous effects. Parts of nearby Peebles were very badly effected and the results can still be seen a year later.

It was a good reminder that a scarce resource that is badly needed all over the world (Wateraid is a good charity who tries to put this right) can also be very destructive when there is too much of it.

Water has played a big role in my life, coming as I do from a country dominated by water and parts of which were wrestled from the sea (The Netherlands), spending time on ships (John was in the Merchant Navy), previously living close by the sea on the West Coast of Scotland in Largs,  and having a serious water issue with the house we presently live in here in the Scottish Borders,  back in 2000/2001 (now happily resolved).

This is not by any means my first water quilt.  That honour goes to the very first quilt I ever made back in 1997 called Water Rings. It won the Scottish Quilt Championships in 1998. And there is also Blue Waves, my quilt stolen back in 2006 (see the special page on this blog dedicated to that story, tab above) and I'm sure water will continue to inspire me.

The quilt was raw edge machine appliquéd, hand and machine quilted, machine couched,  hand beaded and embellished.