Old Blue Eye, or: Blue is the scarf spring wears on her shoulder

Finished...









... the embroidered patch beside the glass
fragment comes from this old kitchen curtain,
I imitated some of it below.
And the eye not only looks sleepy, but
sort of sophisticated...


"Blue is the color of the sky
Without a cloud
Cool, distant, beautiful
and proud.
Blue is the quiet sea
And the eyes of some people,
And many agree
As they grow older and older
Blue is the scarf Spring wears on her shoulder.
Blue is twilight
shadows on snow,
Blue is feeling way down low.
Blue is a heron,
A sapphire ring,
You can smell blue in many a thing:

Gentian and Larkspur, Forget-me-nots, too.
And if you listen
You can hear blue
In wind over water
And wherever flax blooms
And when evening steps into
Lonely rooms.
Cool is blue:

Flame shot from a welding torch Is, too:
Hot, wild, screaming, blistering Blue—
And on winter mornings
The dawns are blue..."

(Mary O´Neill, from: Hailstones and
Halibut Bones - with thanks to Deb G
for bringing it to my attention...)

I´m dreaming of...

It has been warm in Berlin (warmest April
since 1890), and very windy - which tends
to make me restless and cranky...
As a pacifier, I made this (little, light,
slightly girlish...) thing.
I like her, she´s sweet company...

Remember the International Fiber Collaborative´s
Tree Project (I made a leaf
to contribute to it)? Now the tree has
been completed, go have a look at it here...

Robber Bird/Furoshiki

A blackbird, coming back several times
to steal soil (or is it mould?) from the
balcony. She had the decency
to take it from empty pots - seemingly
empty, that is: I´d buried sprouting potatoes
in them, vain attempt at urban
agricultural self-supply...

Yesterday I made a miniature furoshiki,
following this very pleasant tutorial -
and Jude´s advice for stress relief through
mismatched thread (didn´t work too well
though, got annoyed about the binding...)









I wanted to give this double seam method a
try, which allows patchwork without backing
(but definitely prefer multilayered work...)

Fragmentary Blue

A little progress on this piece...
I like how the glass fragment looks like
a sleepy eye.











"Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)--
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet."

(Robert Frost: Fragmentary Blue)

Proud ape, badges of honour

It´s kids corner today.
Made for the Ls, my favourite Under Agers:









King Kong, friend of all sheep, with
sheep honour necklace,
birthday present for L No.1....










Brooch - respectively badge of honour,
co-present for L No. 2...

Nice coincidence: The wonderful Tiny Happy
has badges of honour too today...

Indoors and out

Rapid growth...









I like (sometimes prefer) it´s reflection
on the inside of the double balcony door...









...and I like to make these small, light
things. Calms my nerves, I suppose.
The bit of text (merklich Hoffnung = perceptible
hope) is from an old book by Gottfried Keller
(master German-language story-teller of
the late 19th century)

Useful thing

This spur-of-the-moment-piece, unintentionally
inspired by birds which are not allowed to fly,
makes quite a fine place mat.
Life is profane...


"Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow."

(Langston Hughes: Dreams)

What is this man wearing...?

A saturday trifle - "necklace" made of
scraps of cotton (some tea dyed), a label
(ripped from a second hand jeans) that caught
my eye, a bit of lace, and buttons...


"Absent Place—an April Day—
Daffodils a-blow
Homesick curiosity
To the Souls that snow—

Drift may block within it
Deeper than without—
Daffodil delight but
Him it duplicate—"

(Emily Dickinson: Absent Place -
an April Day)

More blue/Booty

Another blue study (see yesterday) - here I
tried a different way of fixing a glass fragment
to it (unfinished)...











And the Easter booty from my mother´s
old button tin...













...the metal ones were my great-grandfather´s
trouser buttons

Blue

At my mother´s, the garden help had
smashed a blue glass globe which was
standing in a flower bed on a stick
(what´s it called in English - in German
we say Rosenkugel...?)- anyways, she was
much distressed because my father had given
it to her...
So I made this, including two of the
fragments:













And a blue nine-patch for myself, while I
was in the mood...












"Die Erwartung mit einem Bleistift beim Aufsetzen
einen Riß in die Erde zu machen sagst du

ähnle der Erwartung der ersten Männer
über dem Atlantik die ohne Rücksicht auf Verluste

wie Hunde loszogen ihren Herrn auf der anderen
Halbkugel zu suchen Sie ähnelt sicherlich nicht

der Windstille hier auf dem Feld
Es folgt unser gewöhnliches Schweigen

Das Jahr fällt zusammen und der Boden
gefriert im Sturz Ich erinnere mich

an die Vagheit der Wettervorhersage heute morgen
und fühle an beiden Händen während du losläßt

das Scherbengericht des Winds der nur
Hüte herbringt und vielleicht ein paar alte Papier"

(Silke Scheuermann: Beim Scherbengericht steht
der Titel auf dem Stück aus wunderbar blauer
Keramik At an ostracism the title is written
on the piece of wonderfully blue ceramic)

The expectation of tearing open the earth
when putting down a pen you say
resembles the expectation of the first men
across the Atlantic who disregarded any losses
set out like dogs to search for their master
in the other hemisphere it certainly doesn´t resemble
the calm out here on this field
there follows our customary silence
the year collapses and the ground
is frozen in the tumble I remember
the vagueness of the weather forecast this morning
and feel on both hands while you let them go
the ostracism of the wind which only
carries hither hats and perhaps some old papers

Small feet

Last week I bought 2 t-shirt-markers
at a 50-cent-shop, then went on to the zoo,
where I passed a small enclosure
for water birds, for which I never cared
much, just noticed the tiny beach all trampled
by bird feet and went on, then in the evening
tried out my t-shirt-markers -
and here´s what resulted from all this...











Have relaxed Easter days....!!

Button joy

One and only reason for braving a fleemarket*
throng: buttons!! (and lace...)

(*P.S.: ha, a nice Freudian slip... thank you,
ArtSparker, for the hint...)









Lebensfreude (= joy of life)...


"Before I get to the button tin
I have to explain where I've been
Here taking care of my parents, for who knows how long.
Both ill and not very strong.

This is how I stumbled upon this tin.
I'm here staying with them
Sleeping in my mothers sewing room
So I can be closer and more attuned.

So I opened up this little red rusty tin
and this is where the button talk begins
Some of these buttons being very old
passed down from her mother and not resold

There is probably even some of great grannies here.
Some from the good old days that look worse for wear.
But if they could only talk to us.
Could you imagine the stories and such.

Brass buttons, blue buttons to name a few.
Some with eyes, I guess they can see too.
Some from shirts, some from coats.
Maybe even one from a harlot's petticoat.
(Boy, the stories that one could tell.
We won't go there, might burn in hell: O)

But can you imagine where these buttons have been
Worn by babies, children, ladies and men.
I'm sure they witnessed some history.
Seen all God's creations and life's mysteries.

I sure would like to stay and listen to them.
Here the stories of where they've been.
But it's time to go take care of mom now.
I'll leave you with one thought that may raise your brow.
Better beware when your buttons stare.
Cause' later they'll be telling your stories with flare.
Then again I guess that's why we undress before we go to bed.
So those buttons don't have any incriminating facts in their heads."

(JoJo Bean: If Buttons Could Talk)

- Yes, this is a la la poem.
But I like it, for button´s sake...

Silent saturday...

Riverrun

Another small "journey" in progress -
it´s tea-dyed cotton (and a piece of
t-shirt-sleeve from the clumsiness-
blanket pile) on linen, the writing
- "all is riverrun, meeting, a brief
journey together, dissolution..." (found
this line in River of Gods by Ian McDonald,
amazing book...) - stitched with tea-dyed
thin chrochet yarn

















"I chart the psyche,
observing how I
force myself to speak
to you, imagining that
together we might
transform a life.

Why this need
to document change,
to reverse a mood,
to carry forward the time
when magnolias bloom?

Let’s follow the itinerant we
up and over the jonquil's back,
treading on its spilled bullion."

(Sally Van Doren: April)

Spring wanderlust

Well, spring´s blue ribbon...
This little thing emerged rather
unintentionaly, it´s 10 x 9 cm, and
a faint stitching in the corners
says: Fly off...
(I´m planning to make a trilogy -
still to come: Sail away/Get lost)










"It was a nice (...) April morning, if
you care for that sort of thing..."

(Raymond Chandler: Pearls are a Nuisance)