Verdure

A hand-quilted textile made in a lakeside garden in Montreal during a family summer. Materials were prepared beforehand in Riyadh: a white cotton sheet torn into strips, worked through successive dye baths of blue, green and black. It was made outdoors, in the garden of a lake house, among children playing, a kayak drying on the grass, BBQs and mosquito nets.

Verdure followed Wild Hope, made in Riyadh, which sat with the idea of nature's persistence: its force and beauty as something that will outlast human life. Living in a dense, dusty desert city, I had been craving green: the smell of moss, birdsong, the soft give of soil underfoot. Canada arrived as the thing itself.

Before leaving, I went through my fabric stash and pulled a selection on a theme. I didn't have the greens I needed. I took a white cotton sheet, tore it into strips and set a pot of near-boiling water going in the kitchen, working through successive dye baths: a pale blue wash first, then increasing amounts of blue, green and black for each new strip. The palette was built from scratch, around a steaming cauldron, before the trip had started.

I made the quilt slowly in the garden: dappled light through the canopies, the lake rippling at the edge of the property, children nearby. It holds the slow pace of that summer, the particular richness of a wet northern landscape after months of sand and heat.