Counterpanes by Hazel Hall

Counterpanes, stimulated by a Hazel Hall poem of the same name, was designed as a meander book that opens to resemble a quilt. Meander books (sometimes called ‘maze’ or ‘puzzle’ books in the craft community) are a structural variation of the concertina or accordion fold book and get their name from the way a single piece of paper has been cut and folded to make pages – in a so-called meandering format. Meander books unfold in a variety of ways and are thus a kind of intellectual puzzle that require careful attention to layout. Quilts are symbolic forms of connection amongst differences as each piece of fabric must be sewn to another, regardless of matching, to create the final product. An interesting detail of the work is the line of green stitching that guides the reader on where to go next when opening and reading the poem.