“Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways. ”

Oscar Wilde

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

Library in Summer

(bookmark with three motives, sewn and quilted by hand))

“The library in summer is the most wonderful thing because there you get books on any subject and read them each for only as long as they hold your interest, abandoning any that don't, halfway or a quarter of the way through if you like, and store up all that knowledge in the happy corners of your mind for your own self and not to show off how much you know or spit it back at your teacher on a test paper.” 

- Polly Horvarth, My One Hundred Adventures

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

Yes! Happy summer-reading everyone!

Symmetry

It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details. 

Henri Poincare

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

I love Hawaiian quilts, and I had been inspired by Hawaiian forms when I made these squares 

(9 / 10 cm,  3,5" / 3,9"). 

These forms can only be achieved when working step by step by hand, it takes a lot of patience but I love the symmetry in them, and I love to combine two colors in a way that they enter a very special dialogue, a "happy balance".

Whereas Hawaiian quilts typically feature appliquéd forms,

I also used the patchwork technique here in some squares.

I wrote some lines about Hawaiian quilts here:

https://lupinequilts.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-aloha-quilt-by-jennifer-chiaverini.html

I use these squares to make cards:

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

Vincent Van Gogh

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

That's what I like to do: bringing small things together to form something new.

Just now I like putting things together in a quilt in a way I haven't done it before. So I started to use hand-knitted pieces in combination with fabrics, and I think it looks quite good, and its fun also. I like the way fabric parts stabilize the knitted pieces which otherwise would be a bit shapeless in a quilt. On the other hand I feel that the knitted pieces add color and variety 
to the finished piece.

What can be seen on the pictures here are details of tops that are not finished yet, and nothing is quilted so far.

The very first time I worked this way is described here:

https://lupinequilts.blogspot.com/2018/04/a-quilt-with-knitted-parts.html



And here I tried to combine a small hand-woven piece with tiny fabric pieces to form a square which was then appliquéd to make a bookmark.

I'll experiment more with woven parts, I have to try to make it all more even...

Chess Quilt

It's fun, it's flat, it's portable, it's a decoration for a table and at the same time an ongoing invitation to sit down and spend some lovely time with a partner and play a nice game of chess...

The three-layers-quilt is 51 x 51 cm (20"x 20"),

one field is 5,5 cm x 5,5 cm, (2,1" x 2,1"),

it is sewn and quilted by hand and it consists of light cotton fabrics.

This is another one of my board-game-quilts, the other ones being a Backgammon-Quilt, a Round-Morris-Quilt and two quilts for games with rules I invented by myself:

"With a Little Help of My Friends" and "From Color to Color".

If you are interested here are the links:

https://lupinequilts.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-round-morris-quilt.html

https://lupinequilts.blogspot.com/2017/07/backgammon-quilt.html

https://lupinequilts.blogspot.com/2017/06/from-color-to-color-another-tabletopper.html

https://lupinequilts.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-quilted-table-top-game.html

There are so many more board-games, what a lovely possibility to spend some fun-time with friends and family...

I especially love the old hand-painted board games, I showed two examples (with a link for more) here:

https://lupinequilts.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-quilted-table-top-game.html

So beautiful! 

Have fun!

Unesco International Day of Light Today

Unesco: "Building peace in the minds of men and women"

https://en.unesco.org/events/international-day-light

Arrangements of Small Pieces

I had been to Paris for a couple of days, and I found some very nice mosaic patterns which never fail to remind me of quilt patterns, I always stand in awe when I find these lovely arrangements of small pieces.

These first two pictures show mosaics at the wall of the former Henri-Cartier-Bresson -Museum in Montparnasse (the museum will move to the Marais quarter now).

... and this picture (and the last one here) shows a mosaic on the floor of the building where I had rented an apartment,

at  Montmartre :

.... and this is a mosaic which was mounted to the wall of a small building at Montmartre:

... and this here had been painted several times on the pavement all over Montmartre :

Teresa Palomo Acosta wrote a poem in 1976 with the title "My Mother Pieced Quilts",

I love it very much, here is a version on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH0SrqSeiOg

Enjoy!

A Quilt with Knitted Parts

I just tried it out... and it worked!

I like how the colors of the wool (80% wool, 20% Polyamid) complement the patterns and the colors of the fabrics...

... and how the "firm" fabric pieces stabilize the "soft" knitted pieces.

It's all made by hand, and the quilting process was surprisingly easy.

However, one effect of implementing knitted parts is that the quilting stitches don't come out clearly in these parts, but that's fine I think since the color effect is meant to be the eye-candy here.

The quilt's top and back (thin corduroy) feel soft and warm, and I used a light, fluffy pure cotton fleece for the filling. The dimensions (1,40 x 1,50 m, 55" x 59") allow for multiple ways of using this quilt, it can be hung up or used as a warm cover or a cozy blanket to play on, depending on who will be the owner of the piece. This quilt is already sold so I know that it will be used as a warm blanket for a toddler to play upon. That's perfectly good, since the overall design is a playful one and all materials are pre-washed and a washing is easily and quickly done.

I had been happy to do this work and I wish the future little owner many happy cozy moments with this quilt.

Happy Easter!

“Would you like some warm Spring pie?
Then, take a cup of clear blue sky.
Stir in buzzes from a bee,
Add the laughter of a tree.

A dash of sunlight should suffice
To give the dew a hint of spice.
Mix with berries, plump and sweet.
Top with fluffy clouds, and eat!” 

- Paul F. Kortepeter, Holly Pond Hill: A Child's Book of Easter

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/easter?page=5

picture found here: https://imgur.com/gallery/zfkxA

"The eldest ones said that the laughter and tears are sewn right into the quilt, part and parcel, stitch by stitch. Emotions, experiences, heartbreak, mourning, pain and regret, stitched into the cloth,
along with happiness, satisfaction, cheer, comfort, and love.
The finished quilts were a living thing, a reflection of the spirits of its creators."

- Arlene Stafford-Wilson, Lanark County Connections -
Memories Among the Maples


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

March

"My father was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear. March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again."     

Tracy Chevalier

www. wiseoldsayings.com/march-quotes

Stay warm and comfortable! ☺

On the wind in February

Snowflakes float still,

Half inclined to turn to rain,

Nipping, dripping, chill.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

http://www.ibtimes.com/february-2017-quotes-11-sayings-celebrate-new-month-2484290

Book Clips

I made some small patchwork-medallions which can be used as book clips.

The diamond-shaped pieces are sewn and quilted by hand.

I use paper clips, the bigger ones (5cm long, 1,9"), sew them in and fasten them in such a way, that they firmly hold pages in a book, so that the medallions can be used as a bookmark.

The books shown here are ( in order of appearance ):

Goethes Werke, Zweiter Band, Dramen, Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft 1953

Tim O'Brien, Geheimnisse und Lügen,  Luchterhand 1995

John Updike, My Father's Tears & Other Stories, Penguin 2009

Hans-Jörg Dost, Orte zu leben, Gedichte, quartus 2016

Celia Fisher, Blumen, 40 Meisterwerke von Dürer bis Dali, Reimer 2012

Espresso Maker

"Espresso consumption is an aesthetic experience, like tasting a vintage wine or admiring a painting."

Andrea Illy

http://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/espresso.html

I made the design for this block because I love an espresso now & then!

Such a motive can be used as a block in a bigger kitchen-themed quilt,

or- as it is the case here -

be a small wallhanging for the kitchen.

This kitchen quilt here consists of three layers (top and back is cotton, the filling is a polyester fleece), it is pieced, sewn and quilted by hand, is 30 x 32 cm (11,8" x 12.5") and can be hung up easily:

I found this lovely painting at the Staedel Museum in Frankfurt.

The painter is Fritz von Uhde,

the title is "Am Fenster", "By the Window",

it is from 1890/91.

Isn't that a beautiful moment?

Turn Over a New Leaf

“The chief beauty about time

is that you cannot waste it in advance.

The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you,

as perfect, as unspoiled,

as if you had never wasted or misapplied

a single moment in all your life.

You can turn over a new leaf every hour

if you choose.” 

- Arnold Bennett

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/new-beginnings

I started the new year with a couple of new bookmarks. 

They are done with inner appliqué-stitches, 

and I love to show the stitches at several places, so that the whole piece looks a bit as if it's done in a casual and playful manner.

Happy New Year!

May 2018 hold ready some beautiful flowers for you!

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