Imagine

"If you do just one thing - make one conscious choice - that can change the world, go organic. Buy organic food. Stop using chemicals and start supporting organic farmers. No other single choice you can make to improve the health of your family and the planet will have greater positive repercussions for our future." 

― Maria Rodale, Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/organic?page=2

I joined a Global Climate Strike march today and they played "Imagine" by John Lennon. Maybe that's the source of their power, these wonderful young people have so much "Imagination".

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world ...

https://www.songtexte.com/songtext/john-lennon/imagine-7bde0e90.html

"I believe that enjoying your work with all your heart is the only truly subversive position left to take as a creative person these days."

Elizabeth Gilbert in her wonderful book "Big Magic, Creative Living Beyond Fear", Bloomsbury 2015

two new bookmarks, the fabrics are dyed naturally with plants and condiments - 

I love the books they go with:

I think I mentioned them earlier here, 

it's  

Forgotten Bookmarks, A Bookseller's Collection of Odd Things Lost Between the Pages, 

Penguin , 2011

and

Handwritten Recipes,

A Bookseller's Collection of Curious and Wonderful Recipes Forgotten Between the Pages,

Penguin, 2012,

both by Michael Popek

here's the fantastic website:

https://www.forgottenbookmarks.com, 
it's something for an afternoon when you have time for one or more cups of coffee or tea and some cookies and you wish to completely dive into stories and more stories, absolutely wonderful!

Young Tree

A bookmark - made with the help of curcuma, curry, red cabbage, apple, hibiscus, rosehip and stinging nettle - and a shot of vinegar.

I used untreated cotton fabrics (also for the filling) and dyed them with colors provided by nature.

It's a revelation for me and I learn to look at colors differently. In the process, you never know what exactly the outcome might be, the color changes with the texture of the fabric, with tiny changes of the amount of added condiments or leaves or fruit, during the time of soaking, when given to a water-vinegar bath for preservation, while drying and in contact to oxygen or when it's being ironed. I expect the fabric will keep on changing continually, depending on time, exposure to light, the way it will be used ... these fabrics are still living.

I used the motif of a young tree because I am so glad about the news that there are efforts all over the world to plant new saplings, in Ethiopia, India, Philippines, Amazon rainforest, Australia, Ontario..., look here: 


https://albertonrecord.co.za/221373/afforestation-project-ethiopia-recently-resulted-350-million-trees-planted-one-day/









To make this bookmark above I needed the support of  curcuma, curry, red grapes, elderberries, red cabbage, chokeberries, carrots, beet root, celery, lemon, acerola, apple, mango, stinging nettle, coffee and black tea

Human Tree Bookmark

- a bookmark -

"I like to think of thoughts as living blossoms borne by the

 human tree. "

James Douglas

https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/tree





they are 8 x 18 cm, 7" x 3"

I'm reading the absolutely fascinating novel "The Overstory" by Richard Powers, and also opened again the wonderful German picture book by Peter Wohlleben, "Das geheime Leben der Bäume, Was sie fühlen, wie sie kommunizieren." (Ludwig Verlag, München 2016), 
which stood on my shelf for a longer time. 
One page from this book is shown here. 
It is filled with the most stunning and beautiful photographs, descriptions, explanations, narrations and research results.
Both books are about the grandiosity and gloriousness of trees. 
So what can I do? Other than give my love to everything which is a part of nature: make bookmarks to mark pages in such great books. So here is one.

           °  a bookmark, but it can be hung up also  °

Quilted Rug

This is a quilted rug, I wanted to include more improvisation and play in my work, and well, here is something I did recently, I really enjoyed it.

The rug consists of 12 squares which are each complete and finished, quilted, washed and then assembled... the filling is a piece of light blue cotton, which shines slightly through occasionally, because each square consists not only of two fabric triangles but also of two knitted triangles (robust wool, normally used for making socks, it's wool 80% and Polyamide 20 %, it's all easy to wash).

I included knitted parts in quilts before, and it's always great fun, because the yarn changes colors frequently, so there is always an element of surprise what happens next... 

Dimensions are 70 (fringes included) x 41 cm (27,5" x 16").

Also, I constructed the squares in a way that they are two-sided, that means the rug can be turned and shows then another side:

Here I took a picture of my rug together with a book which is well on its way to become one of my all-time favorite books in my life : 

"The Overstory", by Richard Powers. 

I am only on page 77 by now, but I already love it dearly. It is about trees and humans. Incredible story, consisting of intertwined stories, very beautifully composed and excellently written.

Here is a quote, I could pick hundreds of great lines already, and I am only at the beginning, the book has 502 pages.

"Things with clean, concise, right answers are antidotes to human existence."

Improvisation

... a small improvised wallhanging ...

Here is a wonderful essay about improvisation and improv quilts:

http://www.cherylarkison.com/diningroomempire/2015/10/what-really-counts-as-improv-quilting.html

I think Elizabeth Gilbert is right when she writes in her great book "Big Magic" (she describes encouragingly everything that is important to know when one wishes to become more creative and happy in life), that it all "starts by forgetting about being perfect. We don't have time for perfect. ... Perfection stops people from completing their work, yes - but even worse, it often stops people from beginning their work.", plus, I would like to add, I forget to listen to my inner impulses when I wish to do things perfectly right. 

So, I decided, I will try to give play and improvisation more room in my work.

Let's see what happens!

Carefully

"Robert picked up his daughter carefully so that she would not wake. It felt no different holding her from holding Jimmy. He laid her carefully on the Goodenough quilt, her head next to the green silk square, and smiled."

(from this wonderful book: 

Tracy Chevalier, At the Edge of the Orchard, 2016)

When the winds of change blow,

some people build walls

while others build

windmills.

Chinese proverb

(the bookmark shown here lies in this book:

Jennifer Chiaverini, The Union Quilters,Dutton, 2011)

Alice's Bookmarks

"Curiouser and Curiouser!" cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English)...

... this happens in Lewis Carroll's novel 

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland",

written in 1865. 

(It's all here: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/alice-II.html)

Nowadays, more and more often I also would like to cry out like Alice: 

Curiouser and Curiouser!

😉

I came across a very beautiful German edition of "Alice im Wunderland" and "Alice hinter den Spiegeln" (Gerstenberg 2015, with lovely illustrations by Floor Rieder). Holding this beautiful copy in hand, I - again - felt drawn to the strange, weird, dreamlike atmosphere which is created in Lewis Carroll's novels ... 

... and I started to make some bookmarks. 

I tried to make them in a somewhat peculiar way, after I have met all these strange creatures, coming out of chess and card games, or the mad Hatter or the Cheshire Cat or the Gryphon or Bill the Lizzard... just to name a few. And the door! How important is the door which opens to the beautiful garden!

My favorite scene of the whole story is this here: 

"Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table. `Now, I'll manage better this time,' she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden. Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high: then she walked down the little passage: and then--she found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains."

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/alice-VII.html

(pictured here is a page with the beautiful original illustration by John Tenniel, in:

Lewis Carroll, Alice im Wunderland, insel taschenbuch 2161, 1998) 

Isn't it all about such a little golden key - 

once you have found out how to reach the right height to grab it from the three-legged glass table? 

And then to be able to walk through this door??

To get into the beautiful garden?

Constant use will not wear ragged the fabric of friendship.

- Dorothy Parker

https://www.shutterfly.com/ideas/best-friend-quotes/

Happy Easter!

The name of this pattern is "Sunburst".

May you all have lovely Easter- and spring- days,

filled with warmth and sunlight!

Easter Logcabin Hen & Chicks

for Easter decoration ...,  

it could also make a fine pincushion I think.

It's handmade, and I really enjoyed making it.

I first came across the idea of using a Logcabin template for such a chick when I found this tutorial (it's for machine sewing):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP7IOO3AdgQ

This here is a nice tutorial as well:

http://www.loganberryhandmade.com/chicken-pin-cushions-sewing-tutorial/

I was very grateful for the instructions, in the end I made mine a bit differently, but it's great fun!

If anyone wants to know how exactly I made my Easter chicks (and one hen), please e-mail me:

MARIASmail@t-online.de

Bookmarks in a Set: Four Seasons

"There is no season such delight can bring,

As summer, autumn, winter, and the spring."

- William Browne (b. 1591)

http://www.quotegarden.com/seasons.html

(the books shown here are in the order of their appearance:

Spring - Frühlingsfahrt in die Sahara, von Dr. Werner Wrage, Neumann Verlag 1959,

Summer - Eduard Claudius, Als die Fische die Sterne schluckten, Märchen und Legenden aus Vietnam, Laos und Kambodscha, Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle-Leipzig, 1976,

Autumn - Erich Wustmann, WO DAS EIS DIE GRENZE SCHUF, Bei Menschen, Tieren und Pflanzen in der Eisregion, Neumann Verlag, 1955

Winter - Peter von Tramin, Die Herren Söhne, Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1974)

I found this lovely sculpture in the inner patio of the wonderful bookshop and café "Wossidlo" in Ribnitz-Damgarten at the Baltic Sea, Germany:

Spring

"You can cut all the flowers 
but you cannot keep Spring from coming."

Pablo Neruda

https://www.poemhunter.com/pablo-neruda/quotations/

Books-and-Stars-Quilt

"Books are the mile markers of my life. Some people have family photos or home movies to record their past. I've got books. Characters. For as long as I can remember, books have been my safe place. I read about places I can barely imagine and lose myself in journeys to foreign lands ..."

... says Leni in the very lovely book by Kristin Hannah "The Great Alone" (2018). 

(This book is really gorgeous! Leni lives in Alaska...)

What Leni says is so true I think. And so it's time again to combine my two passions: books and quilts, and to make a quilt about books. It will not be something small like a bookmark or a wallhanging, no, this time I want to make a large book-quilt, you can wrap yourself up with it ...

These are the first blocks of such a quilt. The strips in the blocks are meant to show books on a shelf, and the stars ...

... the stars between the bookshelf-blocks stand for the sparkling ideas that we find 

in all these stories and essays which we learn to love throughout our lives.

In addition to that I intend to include letters which spell out the magical line:

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a ...

This is what I've got so far, it's raw and only a beginning, 

but I think - with time - it could turn out fine.

Happy reading!