Hey Everyone, welcome back to Inspirational Sunday at Quilts by Jen. Despite having a great idea on how to redesign and build the Sturt Desert Pea quilt from last week it hasn’t been done and is still an idea – one day hopefully it will become more than an idea.
Continuing with the Outback of Australia theme this week’s inspiration came from an Emu. It wasn’t very often that we didn’t see an emu as we drove down the highway to the big city and most times we saw several. Did you know that the male emus take care of the babies and are very serious about their job. You do not want to get between a daddy emu and his young-uns. The little ones are so cute as they run around on those little spindly legs.
A bird as a source of inspiration for me is really not my style as you see I am not very fond of birds – at all! When I was wee little living on the farm the barn swallows use to swoop at me and scarred me for life.
I really try not to go anywhere near where a bird will come close to me, fly over my head or be able to peck my eyes out – they will do that you know.
A couple of incidents in my adult life have just confirmed what I learned as a child – I will never like birds close by but I do love to see them fly around and do acrobats in the sky. The ravens in Yellowknife were amazing – especially in the updrafts along the rock faces along the highway.
The most notable incident is when Michael and I were scouting out an area near an old train station in Nurioopta, SA to use as the set for some photos. It was spring which means eggs in nests and little birds to protect. As I was walking along the train track I spotted a magpie in a tree eyeing me up – next thing I new I had been hit in the head by that magpie – it just swooped in and hit the back of my head. Well, I turned, put my hood up and ran as fast as I could to the car with Michael laughing at me the whole time. [Editor’s Note: To be fair, I didn’t know she’d been struck by a bird. I thought she was running away because they were swooping. I apologised.] The magpies in Australia were brutal – just ask the posties and my friend Penne.
Now where was I,? Oh right, the emus. As I was driving back from Adelaide to Roxby Downs one day the Emus were very close to the road – in fact they may have been crossing the road. I took the opportunity to take a couple of photos seeing how I was already stopped. One never knows when a photo of an emu may come in handy. It wasn’t long after taking this photo that I took part in an international block exchange and thought an Emu would be perfect to send across the big pond to somewhere in upper NewYork state I do believe as they are very Australian and the block needed an Australian theme.
I designed this block with the emu as the focal point and desert colours surrounding it with the gorgeous sky above. There were not many days in the desert where the sky was not blue and the sun was not shining full blast. The red dirt of the desert gets into everything – it is just a fine sand that permeates all especially in a dust storm – not a good idea to do laundry when a dust storm is on the horizon – whites are no longer white. And yes, there is green in the desert as well – sometimes just not as prevalent as other times.
An Emu taking a stroll through the Outback.
Happy Quilting!
