"Safe as Houses" Crazy Quilt 2004

This is a detail of the "Safe as Houses" crazy quilt I made in 2004 in response to the fires in Canberra . There are a few images online taken during that period.

The quilt is divided into 4 strips. Starting left to right, the first represents the day of the fires, the second is the debris of houses the day after. In the weeks afterwards we had a false autumn as stressed trees dropped their leaves this is the third section.The last section represents the mounds of wood chip produced as what was left of the burnt forest was felled.

Stitches are chaotic in the early strips as life was just that, and as the clean up progressed the stitches become more controlled falling into an expected pattern as life gradually returned to normal.