The quilt started as a sampler when I decided to run a class on the Kaleidoscope block which I use. I tried a number of different ways to build up patterns from four or nine blocks, set them up and then created a wavy line where the background colour changed from gold to purple.

I named this quilt for the line in Lord Byron's "Destruction of Senacherib" which has "The Assyrian came down like a wolf from the fold and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold". As a schoolgirl I had no idea what it was about but loved the sounds it made. Since living in the Middle East it has a bit more relevance.

I was thrilled to read Ogden Nash's critique of the same poem - and of poets in general "Very Like a Whale".

Especially since he ends with a denunciation of the 'snow is a white blanket' line beloved by some poets - on ground that "You sleep under a six inch blanket of snow, I'll sleep under a half inch blanket of unpoetical blanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm!" How is that for a segue from Assyrians to quilts?