wallhanging, handmade, 92 x 92 cm, cotton, linen, cotton blends, wool
As it is always the case with my quilts, this one, too, includes lots of personal stories:
I know exactly which star I made at a hotel room in San Francisco, I know which fabric was given to me by a friend, this fabric is cut off an old tablecloth used in my family, that fabric I once bought at the Oriental Market in Berlin, this is a part of a dress I once wore, this is the same piece of fabric I also used in my Winter Quilt, this is from a dress my sister once wore, this is a part of a shirt which belonged to my brother-in-law and these stories go on and on and I love to combine these fragments of my life in a quilt.
This way a quilt is permanently talking to me, and I like that.
Another story is how I got the idea for this design:
I was leafing through a wonderful book at my friend's place in Berlin. The book was from 1999, it is now out of print it seems, it's by Dorothy Wood, the title is:
"Couture: Patchwork, Broderie"
It's in French, and on one page I found the picture of a large quilt with an extraordinary pattern: stars and stars and more (different) stars, some side by side, some interwoven, light and dark colors gorgeously arranged, a spectacular piece that is!! I had been thinking about the magnificent person who had been able to complete a large quilt like this!
As for me, I copied a small part of this "French Star Quilt" (so I called it) and used it for my design of this wallhanging, and it really took me a lot of time and patience to accomplish that, so again, I can only deeply admire the person who completed a large quilt with such a pattern, and I'm very grateful to her (or him) for giving me the idea for my little quilt here. Sadly no information about the quiltmaker could be found in the book.
Here are some pictures how I went step by step to complete my wallhanging:
assembling the pieces:
finished patterns:
the back of the top:
the top is finished and rests, hung over a chair:
three layers (top/strong cotton/wool) had been basted and are now being quilted:
the quilting is done:
a small binding and a label are attached:
two tubes at the back hold a rod, and the wallhanging is hung up:
