She Carves, She Scores!

Written by Susan Reed

Primitive images of native animals, produced by a traditional stamping technique, surround a vibrant green silk cottonwood tree in the quilt block for Equatorial Guinea, designed by Eva D’Amico in the spring of 2004. The challenge we faced was where to find an appropriate set of animal stamps to complete Eva’s vision.

We searched far and wide. No luck. Finally, Esther asked volunteer and carver Elspeth Greer to create a set. The new dilemma: which medium to use?

Elspeth tried several different materials, without success. Like Goldilocks, she found some were too soft, while others were too hard. Necessity being the mother of invention, Elspeth found a uniquely Canadian solution to the problem. She carved the stamps from hockey pucks! The pucks were sufficiently durable for stamping the fabric, yet pliable enough for carving…just! We used her stamps to print these delightfully whimsical images of lizards, birds, snakes and turtles onto the block. Now that’s a real score!