‘Labour of love’: Quilt stitched by 89 volunteers celebrates mighty NT river

A glorious, three-metre-wide quilt has been created by 89 volunteer “slow stitchers” from various cultural backgrounds living in and around Darwin as a tribute to the rich biodiversity of the Adelaide River which runs through the Northern Territory.

The quilt was put together carefully. Source: Jasmine Jan

Highlights

• A quilt with the theme of the Adelaide River has been created, consisting of 120 blocks by 89 volunteer stitchers.
• The quilt is on display at the Territory Wildlife Park, a government-run zoo situated in 400 hectares of natural bushland park about 40km south of Darwin.
• The artwork is comprised of 120 rectangular blocks each measuring 150mm x 210mm.

The quilt was the brainchild of Jasmine Jan, General Manager of Visitor Services at the Territory Wildlife Park (TWP) in Berry Springs, about 40km south of Darwin, and Barbara Williams, who has been an Artist-in-the-Park since 2020.

Now displayed at the park, the quilt consists of 120 rectangular “blocks”, each measuring 150mm x 210mm in size.

Barbara Williams hard at work preparing the completed "blocks". Source: Jasmine Jan

Stitchers used recycled, calico bags as the fabric to stitch and dye for the quilt. The volunteers donated their own extra threads and embellishments to create their blocks.

Ms Jan said the quilt's theme was originally around the many saltwater crocodiles which inhabit the massive Adelaide River but evolved as the group learned more about the rich diversity of plants and other animals along the major catchment system.

The Adelaide River winds its way along 240km with a catchment of 7640 square kilometres.

The Adelaide River stretches for 240km in the Northern Territory. Source: AAP Image/Terry Trewin

First Nations’ people including the Warray and Kungarakan have occupied the area in and around the river for millennia and it's renowned for crocodiles, both saltwater and freshwater.

Other animals common to the river system include white-bellied sea eagles, whistling kites, bull sharks and black flying foxes.

The river begins in the Litchfield National Park and is joined by eight tributaries before emptying out at Adam Bay in the Clarence Strait including floodplains on Limilngan Wulna land.

The Adelaide River is home to thousands of both saltwater and freshwater crocodiles. Source: AAP Image/Richard Wainwright

Ms Jan, herself an artist, said she had most enjoyed collaborating with fellow artists on the quilt, including Chinese-Australian Meng Hoeschle, to create “something incredible with a great conservation message”.

"I'm totally blown away by the many people involved with it and the quality of the handwork is amazing," said Ms Hoeschle, who was the first Asian art coordinator in Nauiyu, an Aboriginal community in the Katherine Region of the Northern Territory. 

The fourth generation Chinese initially became involved in the making of the quilt after Ms Jan approached her to give lessons on the process of dipping fabrics into indigo, a plant-based dye. 

Ms Hoeschle, who runs indigo dyeing workshops outside Darwin, says this is the first time she's work collaboratively with the community to create art.

Meng Hoeschle dyeing with indigo at the back of her art workshop. Source: Supplied

"That's how it began with her [Ms Jan] almost twisting my arm," Ms Hoeschle jokingly says. 

"It's a very nice coincidence and a wonderful collaboration."

The quilt took six months to complete with 89 community slow stitchers involved in sewing the quilt blocks.

The stitchers were from a wide range of cultural backgrounds including Chinese, Japanese and European, Ms Jan, herself a second-generation Chinese-Australian, said.

Ms Jan said Ms Williams, a local building surveyor, used her technical drawing skills to design the framework for the quilt and constructed it once all the individual blocks were ready.

Jasmine Jan marks on the Adelaide River. Source: Jasmine Jan

“We spent a lot of time moving the pieces around until we could get a design that was pleasing to the eye and was balanced in colour and composition,” Ms Jan said.

“We ended up working from dark colours to light colours and we made sure to distribute the various animals and plants evenly throughout the quilt.”

Stitchers were given a list of all the animal and plant species which can be found in and around the Adelaide River and asked to choose one as the focus of their “block”.

“The fabric that I prepared for the stitch kits that all the volunteers used was dyed using Shibori (Japanese stitching) and indigo dyeing techniques,” Ms Jan said.

“Barbara and I wrote up instructions for how the quilt blocks could be done and I set the parameters for the colour palette restricting our volunteers to using only shades of white to dark blue along with highlight or accent colours of orange, rust, red and brown only.

Alison McShanag's block depicts wild rice growing along the river banks. Source: Jasmine Jan

“This was important to ensure that the quilt blocks all worked together in the one piece.”

Once completed and mounted on a handcrafted display, all the volunteers were invited to the park to see the finished product.

Ms Jan said the project was entirely self-funded with the $5 paid for the stitch kits paying for the cost of the hanging rail and special gallery lighting to illuminate the quilt once hung.

Roswyn Rennie's block features a fierce saltwater crocodile under a sailing boat. Source: Jasmine Jan

“We commissioned Peter Jettner and Troya Bywaters of Get Rocked Studio/Gallery to build the metal vine hanger with small kingfisher sculptures to display the quilt on,” Ms Jan said.

“We did receive some sponsorship from Mark Teakle of Zip Print to assist with covering some of the costs for producing a commemorative book ‘The Adelaide River Slow Stitch Community Quilt’ which documents the various stages of the project.”