Salli McQuaid: Jack's Jungle, 2011 43"w x 53"h, 2011. Detail-Center. Reverse-Right.


Artist 's Statement

Jack's Jungle was a work of love: love for my nephew, Jon, his wife Anna, and their new baby boy (my great-nephew), Jack. I finished the top in time for the baby shower, and took it home to complete after his birth.

When building Jack's Jungle, I knew that his nursery was decorated in beige and medium blue and highlighted with pictures of baby animals. I found a wonderful panel of six sets of jungle animals for the focus, which I immediately cut apart, re-framed in different fabric and re-arranged. I then added many other fabrics in a relaxed, basically "nine patch", configuration. Since it was a "baby quilt" I combined soft cotton flannels with cottons. At the bottom of the quilt is a horizontal band of green fig leaves. They're in case he runs out of diapers!

As I pieced, the quilt became a geometric landscape containing jungle animals. I love the asymmetrical manner in which I balanced the fabrics, colors, and shapes to create a joyful, celebratory quilt. I included Jack's name in pieced letters at the corners and also embroidered on it his full name, birth statistics, and, typically, the title of the quilt. Congratulations, Jon and Anna! Welcome, Jack!

Materials: textiles, specialty threads (metallic, haloshimmer, variegated, cotton, rayon, invisible, poly).

Techniques: machine piecing and embroidery, and long-arm free-form quilting.

Collection of Jon and Anna Reid, Noti, Oregon, USA