" A magic web with colours gay..."

This post is a bit of a cheat, because I did not make the quilt, nor did I even take the photos (I only edited them a very little). However, I've been enjoying seeing them in my photographs for ages and thinking that it would be really nice to share them, in the way I have of taking vicarious pride in the gifts and achievements of those connected to me. This is a very inexpensive and easily come-by form of satisfaction, and beats jealousy, to which I would like to say I am not susceptible but it wouldn't be true.

These are some of my lovely sister's lovely photographs of her lovely quilt, which I think is probably still in the making, it was when the pictures were taken.

It is positively a patchwork bestiary of geometric birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians:

white peacocks and white swans,

polychrome peacocks and black swans,

zig-zag snakes and swimming goldfish, and recurring roundels of yellow-billed geese,

and, of course, button-eyed frogs. I say of course, because, in truth, my sister is a frog phobic ( and I will leave it to you to find out the correct Greek-rooted word for that ), and as so often happens with phobias, the object has become something of a motif in her life and work!

I blame her intense and single-minded genius for creating unimaginably intricate, meticulous, breathtakingly beautiful textile works on the fact that, if maternal mythmaking is to be believed, as a tiny child she would sit by the hour upon said maternal knee begging to have 'The Lady of Shalott' recited to her.

Tirra-lirra...