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

Spools

I'm very fascinated by this pattern. I did some research and didn't find many references to it. I only know now that it is a traditional pattern, I found a picture of a lovely quilt from 1880 showing this pattern in Jinny Beyer's wonderful book "Tessellation - Quilts entwerfen", she calls this pattern "Modified Spool" (and thankfully gives some instructions how to design the template), but mentions that it was also called "Applecore" or "Indian Hatchet". It also resembles the "Clamshell"- pattern, but it is always only a similarity, all these patterns mentioned above originally look more or less different. So, what becomes clear (and I searched the internet and all my Quilt-books, but still, I might be wrong here) is that this pattern was and is not widely used, and no wonder: it's for hand-sewing only, I find it impossible to use the machine here, even with larger pieces, all the curves don't fit when I try to assemble them with my machine - but then again, I'm not that good at machine-sewing in the first place. But all that makes it probably understandable why this pattern isn't that popular and even doesn't seem to have a proper name yet... I'll continue to call it "Spools", plus I will continue to use it for more projects, wallhangings, tablemats, quilts. As I said: I'm very fascinated by this pattern, I like that it's traditional and fine, that it is apparently rare, I like all these curves and small edges, I love the time and care it takes to put the pieces together and above all: I love when one curve meets the other and it all fits so nicely.

The detail above is from this tablemat:

Elizabeth Gilbert on "Creativity"

I love each of her sentences here, I think she is VERY right:

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

Her latest book, "The Signature of All Things", is the first book I started to read all over again right after I have finished reading it for the first time. I find it absolutely fantastic.

And of course I love sentences in this book like:

"... she sewed up the rents in the fabric of her life quite as well as she could, and carried on."

"Spool"- Bookmarks

I so much love a good bookmark. I think and feel that it adds to the pleasure of reading a book in a profound way: it accompanies me during the entire process, it reminds me gently of the page where I stopped reading, it greets me beautifully when I get back to my book again after a break, it assumes the scent of the pages, I can hold and wring it when living through the most thrilling and heart-stopping passages... and it still looks good afterwards (hopefully)!

The book I'm currently reading and which is shown here with my new bookmarks is "The Signature of All Things" by Elizabeth Gilbert. I'm only halfway through but I can only say that it's been a long time that I had been so absolutely fascinated by a book. Since "Moby Dick" and "Cloud Atlas" I haven't had a book in my hands which I really don't want to go away from for a single minute. It is so excellently and expertly written, the story is so touching and timeless. The authoress takes my hands and leads me to worlds unknown and yet so familiar that reading this book is both an adventure and a homecoming.

 Also: this book is adorned with wonderful illustrations!

These bookmarks here came into being after I made the spool-flowers which can be seen in my post  below here. This is the same pattern, it's only used twice. My bookmarks consist of three layers of fabric like in a real quilt, they are sewn and quilted by hand (the machine would be completely useless here since it's all bows and tiny edges, it's a bit tricky to get that all done evenly).

Dimensions are 15 x 7,5 cm/ 6" x 3"

"Spool"- Flowers

As I'm always searching for and experimenting with different forms and shapes to make quilts which show a flower or a tree, I'm glad I found this pattern here to make flower-quilts: it came to me after I studied the book about Tessellation Quilts by Jinny Beyer (I talked about that book on September 7 here). The pattern is a tessellation and a variation of a "Spool"-pattern.

I love to make these flowers now in different sizes. 

I often fix the smaller ones loosely on cards so that  I can use them to make greeting cards then, but the flowers can be removed easily and then used everywhere, on a coat or a cushion or a bag.

Aachen Cathedral, Germany

I'm always very delighted to find lovely mosaics, they remind me of my beloved traditional quilt patterns, they all come from the same source! I took a trip to Aachen to see the Cathedral, and the mosaics there are absolutely stunning, they had been made between 1880 and 1913 by Venetian masters (and other artists from all over Europe). They decorate not only the floor in a gorgeous way, but also the walls and ceilings. I took lots and lots of pictures, here are some of them:

Trees

Oh, I so much like these lines, they are written by one of my favourite authors, Hermann Hesse:

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.” 

- Hermann Hesse, Bäume, Betrachtungen und Gedichte

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/trees


Hier ist dieser schöne Text im deutschen Original: 
http://www.gss.ucsb.edu/projects/hesse/works/baeume.html

My trees here are full 3-layers-quilts in different sizes, pieced and quilted by hand, created without any templates to give them their individual character. With a few fine stitches I sew each one upon a piece of rough watercolour paper and fix a small loop at the back. So  they can be used as a  greeting card  for example and they can be hung upon a wall with or without a frame.

...and  I just love flowers, too, especially when they come along in a slightly unruly fashion... :-)

Belvedere, Pfingstberg Potsdam (near Berlin): Some Romantic Images

Indem ich dem Gemeinen einen hohen Sinn,

dem Gewöhnlichen ein geheimnisvolles Ansehen,

dem Bekannten die Würde des Unbekannten,

dem Endlichen einen unendlichen Schein gebe,

so romantisiere ich es.

Novalis

Flower

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

Albert Camus

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/flower.htm

Tessellation Quilt-Minis

Jinny Beyer: "A tessellation is a shape or combination of shapes which will indefinitely cover an area without any gaps or overlaps. Even though we tend to think of tessellations only as interlocking motifs, any quilt block that repeats itself can be considered a tessellation. But it is interlocking patterns that are intriguing, and once you know how to create them, a whole world of design will open up."

http://www.jinnybeyer.com/quilting-with-jinny/tips-lessons/detail.cfm?instanceId=2141577C-0324-E8C6-1F88CFCEC9808ADD

This here is an absolutely amazing book about tessellation quilts, I guess it is out of print because I only got it at an antiquarian bookshop and in German: Jinny Beyer, Tessellation-Quilts entwerfen, (Schäfer 2001) it's absolutely fantastic.

Here is why I find these tessellation minis so interesting:

The thing is that you only get an IDEA of what the pattern really looks like, not more than that - 

only a small section is to be seen, and the rest is .... you have to find out the structure by yourself: each tiny part is extremely important and is a part of a shape which is a part of a shape...and this goes on and on and is much larger than the piece in front of you, but you get the feeling: this pattern is something big and lovely!!  

I find that intriguing - and I sometimes think it's like what happens in real life, too :-)

These minis are  about 8,5 x 8,5 cm (about 3 1/2" x 3 1/2")

handmade, they can be hung up or sewn onto something or put into a frame... but there is also a piece of (removable) magnetic vinyl fixed onto the back so that they can be used as magnets.