2014 - Quilt

Now towards the end of this year this is my way of looking back: with the star for December I finished the last block for my 2014-quilt. Each of these squares mirrors to me a somehow remarkable incident in a particular month, often it wasn't anything major, but just something I've read, or a trip, or a conversation with someone that impressed me in a certain way. 
My original plan had been to work with plain red and bright natural colors only, because there is such a rich tradition behind such kind of work that I wanted to carry on. On the other hand I wanted to leave traditions behind and do my own designs, using patchwork-technique only. But during the whole process of working on these blocks it seemed appropriate to leave some such "laws" behind and to play a bit more: it's still all individually designed, but there is one block for November with Redwork-embroidery only, the August-block shows appliquéd balls to juggle and in September I wanted to use fabric with a pattern in it and more such little examples where I bent my rules… which is a good thing to do, I think, to bend rules when something better comes up. Something I really wish to learn to do more light-heartedly.

Now the next steps are to add borders, to baste the top with the batting and the backing, to quilt it all, to add a label, to attach sleeves… and to find a nice place for hanging! It will all take time again, I'm working on other things as well, but I'm very pleased to have such a quilt-diary of a year that was important to me.

Merry Christmas!

"Peacemaking calls for courage, much more so than warfare."

Pope Francis

… said that and planted an olive tree, 

together with two other men,

here is the story,

a real good Christmas story:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27754663

If we're destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there's got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.

Ellen DeGeneres

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

Well, yes, I love what she says and I do think that quilts will help here, too!

I really like that pattern!

I found it in a quilt that was recently shown by "quilt index" 

as the "quilt of the day" 

- with my App for my iPhone. 

It's such a pleasure to receive a daily greeting 

with a lovely quilt-picture (plus information about it.)

If you are interested go to:

www.quiltindex.org,

it's such a rich source of information on quilts!

I made a mini-quilt with this pattern and sewed it upon a red cushion cover.

Three wise women would have...

asked directions,

arrived on time,

helped deliver the baby,

cleaned the stable,

made a casserole,

brought practical gifts,

and there would be peace on Earth.

--Unknown 

http://www.quotelady.com/subjects/christmas.html

Yes!

And among the practical gifts would have been quilts 

for the whole family of course!

"Think left and think right

and think low and think high.

Oh, the thinks you can think up 

if only you try!"

Dr. Seuss

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/61105.Dr_Seuss

Oh, I like that quote!!

And one of the "thinks" I thought up  is to have a winter-quilt

which I only use in the months December and January,

and here is it again, 

I like that it's so warm and soft,

and there is a cushion to go with it.

Sweet Voices Ringing From Lands of Long Ago

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,

We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,

And etched on vacant places

Are half forgotten faces

Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know ...

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow.

by Emma Wheeler Wilcox

http://womenshistory.about.com/etext/whx/bl_christmas_wilcox.htm

( I photographed the lovely old toys at the City Museum, Weimar, Germany.)

Redwork

Since I fell in love with this old, traditional Redwork technique of embroidery

 I made some little pieces...

some are made with a double red thread 

the batting consists of a thicker cotton fleece,  

those I will use as tags for presents and such,

others are made with a single red thread 

and are quite thin, filled with a piece of cotton fabric,

those I will use for greeting cards, 

they are fixed with small pieces of a double faced adhesive tape.

And I don't worry so much here about being perfectly even or symmetrical, 

I like these things to be natural and playful, 

so I only mark a few lines on my fabric 

and then proceed freehand.

Here is some wonderful information on Redwork:

http://www.quiltindex.org/redwork.php

November

My November-block for my 2014-wallhanging:

I made it this way because I just had a conversation with someone about the strength of some seemingly fragile beings, as they are showing stamina and the power to come back and to come back and to come back in one form or another...

plus: I discovered Redwork, a technique of embroidery, red thread on light fabric, which just fits in naturally, because my wallhanging is entirely made of red and light colors.

Here is more about Redwork, a lovely read with nice examples: 

http://timquilts.com/2013/06/20/redwork-some-vintage-patterns-to-download

And this is my wallhanging so far, showing one block for every month of this year, my Redwork embroidery-piece looking really very fragile among all the other blocks:

October

This is the block I added to my 2014-quilt this month.

This October everything went "around and around" for me, not like riding a carousel, but like following a natural route, one step leading to another, the ways sometimes being narrow, sometimes wide, offering some exciting new insights...

so now this kind of spiral seemed to be the right motif for my quilt in red and light colors, which serves as some kind of diary for me. Two more months to go, and then I will have finished the top and can start to add the batting and the backing, quilt the three layers, sew a border around it, and I am looking forward to finally being able to hang it up.

This is what I have so far:

Source of Information

Whatever you want to know about quilts, 

here are pictures, examples, descriptions, essays, wonderful collections...

What an excellent source of inspiration and information:

http://www.quiltindex.org/index.php

I go there often, and for smartphones there is a gorgeous App, 

which also welcomes you daily with a lovely "Quilt of the Day"!

A Vase

There is a wonderful poem, "A Vase", by Brad Leithauser,

here:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/245118

Finding the Keys

Finding the Keys

The set seed and the first bulbs showing.

The silence that brings the deer.

The trees are full of handles and hinges;

you can make out keyholes, latches in the leaves.

Buds tick and crack in the sun, break open

slowly in a spur of green.

*

The small-change colours of the river bed:

these stones of copper, silver, gold

.

The rock-rose in the waste-ground

finding some way to bloom. The long

spill of birdsong. Flowers, all

turned to face the hot sky. Nothing stirs.

*

That woody clack of antlers.

In yellow and red, the many griefs of autumn.

The dawn light through amber leaves

and the trees are lanterned, blown

the next day to empty stars.

Smoke in the air; the air, turning.

*

Under a sky of stone and pink

faring in from the north and promising snow:

the blackbird.

In his beak, a victory of worms.

The winged seed of the maple,

the lost keys under the ash.

- by Robin Robertson

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/oct/28/poem-of-the-week-robin-robertson

September

This is my block for September. 

I am working on a wallhanging-quilt which is done with cotton and linen fabrics 

in red and bright colors only and which shows a self-designed block for every month of the year 2014. 

It became some sort of diary for me.

These patterns come quite naturally to me each month, I don't think about them very much, they just "happen". 

Obviously I just wanted to include something calm and peaceful this month, 

and so I did.

This is what I have so far:

Bird Tags

"Birds feed; then they nest. Paint them any color you want, send them halfway around the world, but they'll always find a way back. And eventually they'll show their true colors again."

Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium 

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/birds?page=3

These are mini-quilts, I put them on greeting cards, 

sew them upon small bags, 

or I use them as tags to go with presents.

Pattern

In short, no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world only to the extent that is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller patterns which are embedded in it.

Christopher Alexander

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/pattern_2.html#zyCmdelO3vJid7cr.99

August

... it's my block for August.

I try to design a square each month in 2014. It's some kind of a diary.

All blocks together will form the top for a 2014-quilt-wallhanging.

I hope to get it all assembled and quilted by the end of December!

That's what I have so far:

Quilt of Belonging

http://www.quiltviews.com/at-grand-rapids-the-quilt-of-belonging

I just received this hint from a friend who is actually in Grand Rapids and is happily enjoying the fabulous view:

The Quilt of Belonging,

showing quilt blocks from 263 cultures represented within Canada and from countries all over the world, all united in one big quilt which is 120 feet long.

It's on display in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA.

Here is a block from Greece:

Here is a lovely video about "The Quilt of Belonging":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4di1ftfa28

and here is more information:

http://www.quiltofbelonging.ca/home.htm

(the pictures of the block from Greece and of the joyful boy I found on the homepage, http://www.quiltofbelonging.ca)

Flowers in a Border

"Earth laughs in flowers."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

I wonder whether I should use such a strip (I designed it in a way that it's all patchwork, no appliqué, I just prefer patchwork-techniques in my work, mostly ) as a run-around-border for my quilt-top with Ginkgo leaves which form a circle...

I think, I will just make more flowers and decide it then.

The flowers could add a light note to the symmetry of the Gingko-circles...?

It would look like this:

Quilts in Movies: Cloud Atlas

I so much love to find beautiful quilts in movies I like - as I found them in "You've Got Mail" or in "The Descendants", "The Human Stain" or in "When Harry Met Sally"  or in "Lincoln" (I showed some pictures here before)...
and now I watched "Cloud Atlas" for the second time and only now did I realize that there is this wonderful "windmill"-quilt in Luisa Rey's room (Halle Berry). Only now did I notice so many more important details in this extraordinary movie - never saw anything like this, and never read any such novel like "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell. It's such an adventure: to read this book, to see this movie.
And this quilt looks so good in her room! A quilt always tells something important about the person who owns (and sometimes made) it.

I found this picture here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/apotospitomou/9268079358/

Unruly

Well, these are some old things, and then there are... what exactly are these?
It's not so easy to answer that question.
No1: These things make people smile very often, so that's what they are for in the first place.
No2: As always, things are what people think they are.
Me, I think these "Unruly Flowers", as I call them, could be used as bookmarks. That's what I do. 

(the book shown here is a masterpiece: it's "In And Out Of The Garden" by Sara Midda, 1984)

Here these "Unruly Flowers" come with stems and they are attached to wooden clothes pins:

I like this "unruliness" in them, they seem to say:

"I am what I am, and what I am needs no excuses",

that's a Gloria- Gaynor-song... :-)

Revisited

... just some blocks in quilts I made a longer time ago, I always have them around me but now that I make fresh lists of my work I "revisit" some things and look at them as if they were new guests in my home...

Rediscovered

Just something I rediscovered when I took inventory in my studio: 

squares I made for small quilts a longer time ago. Now I like them even better than at the time I worked on them. 

That's the case these days quite often:

 I dust off a quilt or a cushion or a mouse or a teddy bear or whatnot and I think: 

Oh, I'm so glad I made it!!

2014-Quilt: July

July was such a busy month for me, with trips to several places, I went this way and that way, turned to here and there, sometimes things worked out as planned, sometimes not, there were pleasant and unpleasant surprises- 

so this became my patchwork-block for July: uneven lines and forms, no ruler was used, but somehow it all added up to: 

a square of 24 x 24 cm (9,45" x 9,45"),

the way I wanted things to be. 

And as such I added it as my 7th block to my 2014-quilt, 

which shows one block for every month of this year.