If you work with reused, recycled and repurposed materials, without a pattern, limited by what you have to hand, hoping that the one spectacular fabric or material that helps keep the whole thing together will stretch far enough, then failing to achieve a perfect 10 is a regular event. But sometimes, that is when the magic happens.

Wouldn’t it be horrible if every piece we made was perfect? No diversity; no differences; no interpretations; no errors; no mistakes, where you brilliantly invent something in order to work around the problem you made with your mistake. This happens often in my workshop because of a self-imposed rule that I should not unpick unless there is no other solution.

This piece came about because I was improvising. I had the white applique scraps and bits of lace, an idea half formed, but I needed to make a background to mount it on. I had several ideas but nothing excited me and dithering was becoming entrenched. I was at my local quilt group last month and admired one of the “care quilts” that many of our members make. There are lap quilts for palliative care, children’s quilts for the hospital, baby quilts for the neonatal babies and quilts for local nursing homes. I admired this “just finished” plaid quilt one of the ladies had made, got myself a coffee and came back to find it on my workspace. I checked it was surplus to the Care Quilts requirements, notified the donor, Margie Mott, that I was going to abuse and scribble all over her completed quilt, drank my coffee and decamped to have my evil way with that lovely little lap quilt.

It took another month and I have tried to create a lot of margins for the wabi-sabi effect to work. I worked in black and white to contrast with the plaid. I wanted to do my bit, trying to give an impression of lace, in a very sharp manner, hard and shiny and a bit lyrical, with the homespun, comfy and rusticated plaid pattern with a large overall stipple. I used stylised forms of Australian Native plants against the country checks and plaids. And finally, Margie is a very accomplished quilter, neat and thorough and I am a messy creative with threads hanging and a “what if I do this” attitude. I filled in some of her stipple with zig zag and I cut off the binding she had just done. Sorry Margie to ruin your lovely little quilt – Not sorry.

This piece is a merging of two different styles of quilting and each aspect is offset against its opposite. Somewhere in there, I hope there is some magic happening.

Dimensions: 39.5″ H X 38.0″ W

Materials: Cotton plaid and check fabric with polyester wadding; commercial quilting cotton; thrifted satin, rubber backed curtain fabric, recycled evening dress lace; felt and knitting wool.

Technique: Raw Edge applique with Bondaweb