Ladybird is finished.
Ladybird, the name a shortened version of ladybird beetle (or ladybugs as we call them in the States), has a rich folkloric history, with allusions to religion, good fortune, death, and old rituals. This original quilt, with its split block design, evoked the tiny beetle, a godsend to gardeners everywhere.
We’d had a bumper crop of their babies around the yard when I started this, little crawly things that my husband identified as the early stage of ladybird beetles (the official name).
I don’t know how I came up with this original pattern, but the colors and the accents just sort of found their way to this quilt. I also don’t know how I figured out the quilting, but like anything in my life, the starting is the hardest.
Finishing is easier.
Background fabric is from Jane Sassaman.
Of course you are familiar with the rhyme:
Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, and your children will burn.
There are multiple, maybe even a hundred, versions of this rhyme in many different languages and countries. The one I quoted above is dated to 1744, and is often thought to reference the burning of stubble in the fields after harvest, a practice discouraged now because of air pollution, but common in early times.
My husband found the photography site for us at University of California-Riverside. It’s the artwork on the front of the Genomics Building by Jim Isermann, the sculpture influenced by geometric shapes of molecular structure and its illustration. Yeah, I’m in love with this. And did I mention my husband broke three ribs last week? Yet he still helped me schlep around the quilts (and holding one up for me in another upcoming post), even clamping on one side where I couldn’t reach. (It was a small household altercation with a huge yard waste container; he will be fine in about six weeks, but for now I do the trash.)
After dinner at our newest Vietnamese restaurant, we flew away home. Thankfully, our house is not on fire, but, regretfully, our children are gone.
Pattern will be coming soon.
Annularity
The wild and crazy back. It’s “prairie house” from the De Leon Design Group, for Alexander Henry Fabrics. I thought it might disguise any oopsies, but I was happy to note that I actually had very few. I guess maybe after ten years I’m getting better at the quilting? Much credit belongs to the Sweet Sixteen machine I use, and the threads, which always seem to balance so well.
