A Joy-Filled Christmas!

"Joy is a marvelous increasing of what exists,

a pure addition out of nothingness."

Rainer Maria Rilke, 

Ahead of All Parting:

The Selected Poetry and Prose

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/joy?page=12

from: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis

“It was a sledge, and it was reindeer with bells on their harness. And on the sledge sat a person whom everyone knew the moment they set eyes on him. He was a huge man in a bright red robe (bright as hollyberries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest. Some of the pictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the children actually stood looking at him they didn’t find him quite like that. He was so big, and so glad, and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt very glad, but also solemn.

“I’ve come at last,” said he. “She has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. Aslan is on the move. The Witch’s magic is weakening.”

http://simplehomeschool.net/christmas-literature/

(the photo shows a small hand-quilted and appliquéd mini-quilt, a piece of magnetic foil is attached at the back, so that this piece can be used as a magnet)

Happy Grace

“The rapid nightfall of mid-December had quite beset the little village as they approached it on soft feet over a first thin fall of powdery snow. Little was visible but squares of a dusky orange-red on either side of the street, where the firelight or lamplight of each cottage overflowed through the casements into the dark world without. Most of the low latticed windows were innocent of blinds, and to the lookers-in from outside, the inmates, gathered round the tea-table, absorbed in handiwork, or talking with laughter and gesture, had each that happy grace which is the last thing the skilled actor shall capture--the natural grace which goes with perfect unconsciousness of observation. Moving at will from one theatre to another, the two spectators, so far from home themselves, had something of wistfulness

in their eyes as they watched a cat being stroked, a sleepy child picked up and huddled off to bed, or a tired man stretch and knock out his pipe on the end of a smouldering log.” 

- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/december

Bookmarks

This is another bookmark I have designed, a candle, to match the hours of reading in the colder season which is coming up now. And this book above, "Our Souls at Night", the last book Kent Haruf has written, is really heartwarming, I really enjoyed reading it.

yes!  

These words I found here: 

https://www.pinterest.de/whitescandles82/candle-party-quote/

And here is an overview of the bookmarks I have designed so far, it's really fun to make those!

some with typical American quilting motives:

some bookmarks for small and big kids:

houses:

some crazies:

different motives:

Hawaiian:

some flowers:

some done in the style of Civil War Era quilting:

a set of similar bookmarks:

... and that's what it's all about:

I wish you'll have a good time reading your favorite books!

The book shown here is: 
"A Cup of Tea",
by Amy Ephron,
lovely!

“Are you upset little friend? Have you been lying awake worrying? Well, don't worry...I'm here. The flood waters will recede, the famine will end, the sun will shine tomorrow, and I will always be here to take care of you.” 

Charles M. Schulz

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/209672.Charles_M_Schulz

"Give me juicy autumnal fruit,

ripe and red from the orchard.

(Give me the splendid silent sun)"

Walt Whitman, The Complete Poems

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/autumn?page=3

Kazuo Ishiguro: Nobel Prize in Literature

Kazuo Ishiguro receives the Nobel Prize in Literature this year!

I am so glad, I love this author, and "The Remains of the Day" is one of the books in my life 

I hold most dear!

Here are two pictures of a "Literary Quilt" I once made , it's a wallhanging, to mirror some of the thoughts of this incredible story. I also love dearly the movie with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.

 - picture above has been taken by Arndt Laude, photographer in Hamburg, Germany, 

www.alaude.de - 

pattern in an old quilt

Baloo Bookmarks

"And that is how Mowgli was entered into the Seeone Wolf-Pack for the price of a bull and on Baloo's good word."

Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

How much I love "The Jungle Book"!
(... and I had been very surprised to learn that the book is telling quite serious tales, like fables, and in that differs a lot from the 
Disney animated movie.)

Here are some bookmarks I made for kids of all ages, in remembrance of Baloo the good Bear from the "Jungle Book".

"The man's cub - the man's cub?" he said. "I speak for the man's cub. There is no harm in a man's cub.  I have no gift of words, but I speak the truth. Let him run with the Pack, and be entered with the others. I myself will teach him."

Blue Flower Wallhanging

(wallhanging, hand sewn and hand quilted, three layers of thin cotton, 

63 x 63 cm, 24,8" x 24,8")

I got the idea for this design when I was leafing through my sketch-book,

I stopped at the picture of this beautiful intricate quilt, I don't know anymore where I found this, at some point I had cut out and glued in this beautiful depiction, but I don't remember any details.

My piece is not nearly as complex, but it is what I wanted it to be, so I'm very ok with the result.

 

A Little Bag

"Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams,

Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round."

William Butler Yeats

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/bag.html

(small hand sewn and hand quilted bags, 18 cm/ 7", with a zipper and a quilted zipper pull)

"The fine art of making ...

... quilts -

masterpieces you can wrap up in" -

This is the title of a fine article by Rick Kogan in the Chicago Tribune.

I enjoyed reading it! The videos are nice as well.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ae-hip-quilter-0813-story.html

Maltese Cross Quilt

(Maltese Cross, 63 x 63 cm, 24,8" x 24,8", 

three-layer-quilt, sewn and quilted by hand, 

cotton fabrics)

What I like about such a pattern:

it depends how you look at it and you may detect several different patterns.

The dominant pattern for most people presumably is this cross, which resembles a windmill: 

But then, someone else probably finds equally prominent this four pointed star in an eight- sided "circle",

or this star with four inner and four outer points:

Which way ever you might look at it, you're right and the other person, who looks at things differently, is right also! It's all there! Nice idea.

Backgammon Quilt

I made a few quilts recently which not only may decorate a table 

but which also are meant to invite persons to sit down and 

play a game together. 

This quilt is for playing Backgammon.

I only recently learned the basic rules and 

I think Backgammon is a very classy game,

apparently one with a rich historic tradition.

Here is a Backgammon set that was used at the Belvedere Castle (Weimar, Germany) in the early 18th century. I liked the design, so that's what made be being interested in this game.

And since it's International Friendship Day today,

what better way is there to celebrate friendships 

than to sit down together at a nice table and play a game?

On the picture above is shown the starting position. 

The rules for Backgammon can be found here:

http://www.bkgm.com/rules.html

The dimensions of this quilt are 54 cm x 45 cm, or roughly 21" x 18".

It is a hand sewn and hand quilted thin piece, consisting of three layers of cotton fabrics.

Interested to learn more about the International Friendship Day?

Then go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_Day

I think we should celebrate that idea daily!

Enjoy this day today!

Patterns

I had been to the "Gardens of the World" in Berlin.

It's a large area with gardens which are created in different styles: 

Chinese, Japanese, English, Balinese ....

I especially loved the Moroccan Garden, which also shows lots of gorgeous mosaics.

And in these mosaics I recognized some of these ancient forms which also occur in quilt patterns, 

and here it was again, what I so much love, the bridge between different cultures and centuries,

shown in patterns which occur all over the globe at different times.

Here are some pictures of the mosaics and pictures of quilt patterns.