Label
This quilt is made from hand-dyed cotton, lace, lame, and brocade. Threads include polyester #40, Candlelight, Razzle Dazzle, Glamor, and hand dyed #5 pearl cottons. Stabilized with Totally Stable, Fuse-A-Shade interfacing and polyester felt. The top was hand-dyed fabric pieced in graded strips. The bugs were done as appliqués on felt with bobbin work threads. The butterflies were made on a 630 Bernina, self digitized and stitched on lace through computerization. The vines were done as cut away-appliqué. Atmospheric spirals were appliquéd with Steam-A-Seam 2, and mono-filament nylon. Monofilament nylon is the basic quilting thread through the sandwich.
"I've always loved the beauty of beetles. Like every girl in America, I've grown up believing that I could never be beautiful. I knew I couldn't measure up to American Girl. Barbie was hopeless. I wasn't ever going to be that kind of beauty. I didn't have those breasts and I couldn't walk in those shoes. We're all told we are too fat, too skinny, to myopic, too boyish, to girlish. The list marches on and convinces me that we simply bash girl children into believing we are never good enough.
Somewhere in there, my father brought me bits of nature. He brought water lilies, fish in jars, beetles and moths from his fishing trips. He took me in little boats on the river and kept me from falling in as I put my face as close as I could to the water to see what lived in there. He brought me a million wild flowers and later taught me his names for them when I hunted them myself.
Nature's beauty is wild. It does not exactly repeat itself. It astonishes us and scares us. Even its imperfections are magnificent. It does not have fashion trends. And some of it is very round in the bottom. I can be that kind of beauty. My bugs are a celebration of my own wild beauty and yours, past fashion, past convention. The beauty of individuation is a scary thing indeed. And lovely."