Art Quilt: Magnolia Memories

How does one capture the essence of a magnolia tree’s beauty? I’ve made two magnolia quilts previously, one, Blooms Before Leaves: Magnolia, from 2022, is an abstract, closeup and pixelated view about which I felt good, although it is terribly small. The other, Magnolia, from 2020, has always bothered and disappointed me. Perhaps because the colors didn’t feel true to the tree: too much orange when there shouldn’t really be any orange at all. And other reasons like the quilting, composition, like everything except the letterpress printed words: magnolia, birth, around, memory, again, circle, always, hope. But that was six years ago. 

So, working in my new 2026 process, I cut up Magnolia, created a smaller assortment of purples to add, and stitched Magnolia Memories, which I feel captures the essence of the tree at a scale and composition that suit it better.

Magnolia Memories

27"w x 24"h (68.5 cm x 61 cm)

Hand-dyed and pigmented linen, cotton, velvet; letterpress printed cotton, silk organza; raw-edge applique; free-motion and machine pieced; machine joined

Details:

And the back:

From these: 

I weeded out the orangey petals and saved out some of the pinker petals (which I liked) from the original quilt, adding more quilting before I cut the whole thing up. And arranged some new purples to add to the mix.

to this: