November quilt or: Printed matters

On it´s way: November contribution to my
private little monthly callenge...
The (late-)autumn leaves to the left on
the first picture stem from a (more or less)
local swap of hand printed fabric squares...













That´s what I got from (left to right)
Suschna, Floh (both Berlin based) and Tally
(Hamburg)

November day or: Cuffs

Here are a couple of cuffs/ornaments I made,
using some of the turmeric-tea batik I dyed
a while ago...















































The machine writing says: To sit, to think,
to sleep, to dream and: Hold on to nothing
too long.


"Nebel,
der alles verschlingt:
Jedes Haus, jeden Baum, jeden Strauch.
Ein Kind schreit vom Balkon:
»Bin allein,
endlich allein auf der Welt!«
Und aus dem Nebel die Antwort:
»Ich auch!«"

(Hans Manz: Novembertag/November day)

Fog,
swallowing up everything.
each house, each tree, each shrub.
A child shouts from a balcony:
"Am alone,
finally all alone in the world!"
And out of the fog the answer:
"Me too!"

November nights or: Eskimoing

Dug out this half forgotten project, a bedspread
made from old t-shirts, sweaters and nightwear (of which,
all grey, there seems to be an endless supply...)













It´s all stitched by hand - a somewhat humble, but pleasing
project for November nights (with Eskimo yo-yos,
from discarded pyjamas...)













"Listen. .
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And fall."

(Adelaide Crapsey: November Night)

Remembering October

Almost finished this one, called Rainy weather (of which
we had more than enough in the last couple days...) - it´s
going to be my quilt of the month for October - when I made
this in September, I got the idea of starting a
collection of small quilts, each one dedicated to a month...

"Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun
bring more happiness than the daffodils."

(Cyril Connolly)

Picasso reloaded

It´s painters´ week, it seems...
An advertisement for Picasso prints caught
my eye with 4 animal drawings, all done in
just one line - which looked like good suggestions
for practicing machine embroidery...













He´d been cheating with the eyes on some, though,
and so did I with my own designs...

Silent saturday...

Strange growth

Have I been visited by the ghost of Georgia O´Keefe...?
Can´t remember anything - but here it is, a strange
and rather ambiguous object (about 26 x 24 cm)...

And a second one already in the making. The pleasant
rosé shade I dyed with some leaves (copper-beech perhaps)
I´d picked up on a walk.

KunstSTOFF

Went to see an exhibition of quilts (quite a
rare thing around here...!) in the
local Kommunale Galerie, a municipal gallery




































Shown are works by quilters from Sutton, England,
Gagny, France, and from the Berlin area - they´re
the results of a challenge, each one 1 m x 1 m and
including these four fabrics:













All rather on the conventional side, but good to see,
nevertheless...

(KunstSTOFF, till Nov. 8)

Silent saturday...

Another dye try...

Turmeric (nice, just a bit too yellow for my taste...)













Turmeric + tea batik (fun, but rather retro...)













Pine cones (a light, but very pleasant beige)...

A patch of laughter

A Calmer. There´s a bit from an old book
behind the latticed lace, it says: It is a long
way...


"Wind rips splendor from the trees
and lays it at our feet.
Some of us hungry,

some of us lucky to be upright at all.
Season past sweetness.
Stuck in the throat with a fork.

A speck in the spectrum
spins into a wet little planet
studded with heartlust,

flooded with pamphlets
for classes on how to forget.
Where Keats sees a reaper

asleep on the granary floor,
her scythe set by quietly,
wind playing games

with the husk of her hair,
I see a dead squirrel.
It’s the end of October

and I don’t have a costume.
Past lives clutter my closet
a long way from home.

There’s a hole in the ground
where my house used to be.
A hole in my head

where my heart used to be.
I’m climbing a hillside,
a green patch of laughter."


(Suzanne Buffam: Romantic Interior)

My heroes have always been...

Meet a new member of the family - I call him
the Dukeling...


"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes
into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it
arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've
learned something from yesterday.”

(John Wayne)

Silent saturday...

Old October

Some development on this "playing around with a
traditional pattern"- piece...
There are dark grey blots on the linen patch with the
October embroidery (hardly visible here, though), produced
with tea and iron dye, a method I stumpled upon last month.
Here`s some more of it, on cotton:

























It´s done with a small amount of big leafed black
tea and an iron-pill, just putting boiling water
over it all and letting it sit for two hours or so.
The iron seems to have the effect of encouraging rather
distinct blots just around the tea leaves.


"All things on earth point home in old October;
sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences,
hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of
hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken."

(Thomas Wolfe)

Buuuhh...