JULIENNE HANSON
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What are Those Blue Remembered Hills?
My inspiration is the line from Houseman’s ‘A Shropshire Lad’ that provides the title for this quilt and my ‘thin blue line’ of hills. Houseman’s lyrical and nostalgic view of the Shropshire countryside suggests a mythical landscape, but his poetry is suffused by a profound sense of foreboding. Perhaps that is why so many WWI soldiers took his poems into the trenches? In my mythical landscape, the time is sunset, presaging the passing of an era. The last furrow is half unploughed, suggesting a ploughman called away from his work. The poppies represent the fallen of Ypres, the Somme and Passchendaele.
Hand-dyed, strip pieced cotton sateen is partially overlaid with layers of organza, wadded, backed and densely free machine quilted using both a single and a double-needle and a mix of metallic and rayon threads, before being embellished with machine embroidered lettering and applied flowers, and finally bound. Back |