A dear friend of mine who loves roses has been talking about a commission for some time. I finally took up her offer and designed this quilt for her beautifully restored home. As the only requirement was ‘roses’, I was very spoilt – I have a large country garden full of them and often pick lovely bunches to put inside.

It is a fairly large quilt, measuring 1.07 x 170 cm, and made entirely of my own surfaced designed fabric (apart from a few tiny bits). The roses were made by scraping and squirting thickened Procion dyes on plain white cotton fabric. The smaller roses were made with fabric paint using the ‘wet scrunch’ method. The background was screened printed using the thickened dyes using plastic resists- a commercial scrap booking stencil and some orange road safety fencing. The table cloth was made with a squirty bottle and black paint.

The fabrics were free cut with scissors and fused, collage-style to the background (with a lot of auditioning a long the way). I did not use a pattern, but worked intuitively, like a painter, building up shapes and tones. The piece was then directly quilted using many different types of threads. My aim was to keep everything loose with raw edges and a sketchy type quilting line.

Carolyn loves her quilt.

This quilt was on display at the Victorian Quilters Showcase exhibition in July of this year.