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Friday, 20 September 2013

Patchwork Meadow

I was delighted, as a member of Plantlife to be invited today to a presentation from the charity and a viewing of the Patchwork Meadow exhibition.

The Patchwork Meadow project is a public participation artwork involving miniature works of wild flower inspired art, using embroidery, beadwork and applique. People were asked to contribute a 15cm fabric square along with the story of why it was chosen. To date there have been over 800 contributions in the UK and almost two thousand entries from Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia.

Almost 400 squares (mostly from the UK) are on display at the Gallery of the John Hope Visitor Centre of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.  I was amazed by the sheer variety and beauty of the squares, which demostrate the diversity of our plant life, the wealth of folklore that attaches to these plants and the amazing craft skills of people across these European countries. You can browse the squares at Wildflower Europe.

 The exhibition is free and continues until Monday - so if you're in Edinburgh this weekend why not pop along! The exhibition will later tour the UK, including London, Salisbury and Bangor. (Dates to be confirmed)

The project is open for contributions until January 2014. I have to say that seeing the exhibition today both inspired me (because there are so many amazing squares) but also made me feel that I wouldn't be able to create anything good enough, but still, I'll certainly try!

7 comments:

  1. I bet you cna create something lovely!

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  2. thanks speedy, I'm certainly going to try, I'm thinking something involving a bunny perhaps...

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  3. Dear Juliet, Patchwork Meadow, in itself the title is a poem.
    I am sending you as an answer the translation of an haiku a friend of mine wrote:

    A dragon fly tiptoing
    on my turntable,
    I stop breathing.

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  4. I am not crafty at all, but I do love wildflowers, so I visited the link...what lovely contributions. I bet you come up with something wonderful...rabbits in a wildflower field?

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  5. Go for it, Juliet!

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  6. So, does this mean you will be creating your own square? sounds fun!

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  7. What a great project! Thank you for the link ...

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