This complex pieced quilt was inspired by renowned Japanese quilter Shizuko Kuroha’s ‘Clamshell’ pattern, a restructured Log Cabin design that uses uneven ‘logs’ to create a five-and-a-half inch block. While travelling in Japan in 1992, Lois Monieson picked up Kuroha’s early Log Cabin book and ‘was flabbergasted! They were Log Cabin designs, but they didn’t look the least bit like any I’d seen before.’ For the main body of the quilt, Monieson used yukata cotton, a Japanese fabric traditionally hand-dyed with indigo blue, which she sourced both in Japan and the United States. The butterflies, as well as the fabric in the border and some in the centre, come from used kimonos.

Lois Monieson took her first quilting course in 1985 and was hooked. She became an accomplished quilter who exhibited widely in Canada, the United States and Japan, winning numerous awards. Her work has been featured in several quilting books, magazines and newspaper articles. Her stitching was detailed and her designs inventive. Monieson was fascinated by the ‘math’ of quilt design and, in her own work, pushed the boundaries of traditional patterns. Well-respected in the Kingston quilting community, Lois Monieson’s quilts are evocative of the impact and resurgence of the decorative arts, and particularly quilt-making in the mid-twentieth century in Kingston.