Kookaburra Tree
To be honest, this is not actually a “kookaburra” tree, but how many of you can hear that song now in your head?! I cannot begin to explain why we sang it when I was young, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Oracle could explain a bit about that ear worm I now cannot get rid of, but I’ll get to that later.
This quilt – with a native New Zealand tree called a Pohutukawa – was made for my cousin’s first grandchild. I have been thrilled to connect with him due to my rambling blogs, and we periodically touch base, even though he lives in New Zealand. No matter what the holiday, his is the first greeting I receive! When I learned his daughter was having a child, I wanted to send them a quilt. Fortunately, I knew my sister was heading to NZ and could carry the quilt to them (under much duress, mind you, as she is an minimalist packer… she only had a carry on for a 3 week trip to NZ!). I asked my cousin what his daughter loved, and he mentioned trees. Off to The Oracle to find images of native NZ trees. There are a number, but when you filter your search to only present drawings, this design shows up. Sadly, it is not attributed to anyone, other than to say it is aboriginal in origin. NZ has summer when we are slogging through winter, so the Pohutukawa tree is in full bloom at Christmas time, thus it is considered their holiday tree. I was attracted to the shape and colors.
I work very part time helping a local print company manage their accounting, and the owner is wonderful at creative projects (Little Fort Media in Waukegan). I asked her to enlarge the image to create a pattern. As the piece is a mirror image of itself, I actually told her she only needed half of the piece. The bird is not, though, so I did need all of him.
Once I had my large paper template, I dug through my fabrics, finding a great brown for the tree, as well as a mottled green to represent the ground. The reds needed a subtle contrast, and a green needed actual leaf imagery to help give texture to the little leaves. On to the pattern.
This part was a tad complicated. Using a fusible webbing, I had to trace the image of the tree. The tracing part is not hard, but it is ALL ONE PIECE! Hadn’t really thought that one through. It was easiest to trace one half, fold the webbing, and cut in two layers. If you have ever cut complex paper snowflakes, you can understand my dilemma. The darn thing tangles and twist. I have to peel off a paper to reveal the sticky backing, and doing so made all the little bits start sticking together. Solution was to lay it down a bit at a time, smoothing it out as I went.
Now for the red. Not difficult, but getting some contrast and making sure to cover the ends of the various branches turned out to be more difficult than expected. Thank goodness the shapes are basically blobs, and I could cut and trim as needed. And add more blobs, until I felt the coverage was good. Clearly diverging from the “pattern” but the joy of these style projects is that patterns are optional! I am a bit of a “Pirates of the Caribbean” style person: rules are only guidelines…
I confess the leaves nearly did me in. Not only did I need to cut endless little almond slivers, I had to keep them from sticking to each other. And scatter them so they looked right. Which meant cutting a great deal more. Then, to make things more painful, I had to machine quilt around each and every leaf – I did not applique the pieces down in the traditional sense; I use a fusible web that holds the pieces in place. Then I machine to quilt, outlining each individual piece, which secures them and strengthens the quilt. Especially for a baby quilt, which should be used and washed, and shoved in bags, and draped on the floor. Those darn leaves felt endless while sitting at the machine, but the result was worth it.
A Kookaburra is actually a native bird of Australia, and it is sitting in an “old gum tree” in the song. The song was written by Marion Sinclair (1896-1988) in 1934. She wrote it for a competition run by the Girl Guides Association in Australia (Girl Scouts), to raise money for the purchase of a camping ground. While I was never a Girl Scout in my youth, I did attend some camps with friends, so possibly that is where I picked up the ear worm now residing in my head:
Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra,
Gay your life must be!
Interestingly, this quilt was for a NZ baby, and the land mass of NZ has almost no native mammals. The only ones are bats and marine mammals. And many birds. While the Kookaburra is seen, rarely, in NZ it is not native, but was introduced back in the late 1870s. The tree in this quilt is actually a Pohutukawa. It is of the myrtle family, and is an evergreen tree. The tree features in many Maori legends, and has been recovering it’s population with restoration programs. The bird is a Tui, and also has special symbolic meaning to the Maori culture. It is a national heritage animal of NZ. The Maori associate the bird with life fulfillment, confidence and spiritual harmony. When I made the quilt, I did not know the cultural significance of both the tree and bird – I was focused on the visually pleasing imagery. Now that I do know, I am pleased to send little Jack a quilt full of symbolism offering him a life of fulfillment, confidence and spiritual harmony.
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