Roman Holiday
2006-7
82" x 82"'

This quilt was inspired by a trip with my husband and 15 year old son to England in 2005 where we spent a lot of time visiting the Roman ruins and excavations in the south and west of England. We spent a wonderful day in Bath at the Roman Baths and the nearby museum. The central motif in this quilt was adapted from the sculptured pediment of the excavated temple on the site and depicts Aqua Sulis the God of the early sacred warm spring which fed the baths. T

The surrounding motifs incorporated printed images of Roman mosaics as the centers of the compass stars and appliquéd images of Roman artifacts that have been unearthed in southern England. Most of these were adapted from my original photos.

The quilt is a result of two workshops taken at Quilting in the Desert in January 2006. One from Jean Biddick who inspired the pieced mosaic circular frames for the images and the other from Sharon Schamber who inspired me to paint and piece the image of the river God.

The images are appliquéd to a quartered background which represents the river reeds of the early spring. The background has been embellished with over 500 Swarovsky crystals to give the effect of sparkling water.

This quilt is published in Jean Biddick's Masterful Machine Pieced Quilts, AQS , 2010