Windmill Quilt

I just finished this quilt. It is 1,38 x 2.04 m (1,5 x 2,2 yards), handmade, the batting is a warm 70%cotton-30%polyester-fleece and the back is a soft lavender cotton piece.

I think in a room it is really a point of energy, it's just what a windmill does, it is continually taking up the winds and is creating power and warmth with them, and the winds blow from all directions here... :-)

Maya Angelou

http://mayaangelou.com

Maya Angelou receives the American National Book Award today. 

What a wonderful lady she is!!

She delivered this fabulous poem in June 1995, at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the United Nations.

A Brave and Startling Truth

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it. 

Maya Angelou

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-brave-and-startling-truth

Night and Day

A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.

Steve Martin

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/sunshine.html

Simplicity

Recently I had been talking to a lovely person who at one point said to me: " I like your quilted things very much, but it seems to be so difficult,  even if I could muster the time and patience - I could never make anything like that!!"  But NO!!! EVERYONE who is able to use his or her hands freely and who feels attracted to quilting and patchwork and is willing to invest some time and patience is able to produce a quilt or a smaller patchwork object!! 
So this is for her (and everyone else who is interested): 
All you need is simple everyday- material: fabrics, yarn, pins, an iron, a needle and (triangle) ruler and scissors, and for tracing templates: a pen (a dark one, and a white pencil for dark fabrics, also: the pen should not leave nasty stains on the top of the fabrics, especially when it comes to washing) , and off we go!! Everything else is optional!! Things can be so simple and therefore they often possess a very special charm!!

Here is the picture of a template for a simple square. The loveliest things can be produced with a pattern of assembled squares!! For the template you can use a simple piece of cardboard. However, when I know I will use the template often I use laminated paper, it's more durable.

The template is traced on the wrong sides of the pieces of fabric I wish to use (some seam allowance is necessary),  I secure the ends of every line I need to sew with pins, and now I just go along the marked lines, using a simple needle, strong enough yarn and a straight-forward stitch, or the machine, then I iron the seams  ...

... and a lovely piece of patchwork is produced!!

For example now: make a lovely down-to earth-cushion! There is not even any quilting required! Just assemble as many patches as you need, fold the piece, sew together along the edges - right side turned inwards -, leave a gap, then turn it, iron it, fill the form with anything you have at hand, I often use scraps or a woolen blanket which is no longer needed, close the gap: and here is a sweet little pillow! Or even a larger one!!

If you used the machine and narrow stitches you can cut freely through the assembled patches and probably you wish to form a cat-pillow like this one below. Tip: cut into the seam allowance along the curved parts of the seam several times (not too close to the seam itself), so that the fabric lies more smoothly when the form is turned to the right side.

I also love such simple placemats or wallhangings. For them you can go like this: you back the patchwork-piece with another piece of fabric, you sew them together along the sidelines - again: wrong side up -, leave a gap, turn the form, iron it, fill it with a made-to-measure thin piece of fabric, close the gap, and apply some simple quilting stitches to put the three layers of fabric firmly together.

This is important, too, I think: Do not worry overmuch about accuracy!  It's lovely when all the corners meet, but you will see that although you worked carefully, they sometimes just don't, and they don't always HAVE to! Again: I think a lot of charm lies in the individually crafted things, sometimes even more so when they are not perfectly manufactured.

"Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

http://www. brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/simplicity.html

For this wallhanging I modified the "Modified Spool"-pattern even further by cutting the spools in halves. It's all hand sewing and -quilting, dimensions are about 100 x 100 cm, 39" x 39".

I said it so often here and I can only repeat it again: I really love this fine and rare, traditional pattern, its combination of straight and curved lines, of right angles and twisted mirror images, of structure and spontaneity! 

"You must plan to be spontaneous."

David Hockney

  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/spontaneous.html