Give your heart away

A few years back: On a whim I crocheted a heart and then added some embroidery. An idea for you: A variety of different hearts would make a nice Valentine’s Day table decoration! (Valentine's Day)

Valentine's Heart - Crochet and Embroidery (front)

Valentine's Heart - Crochet and Embroidery (back)

And a tiny heart for my daughter Valerie !

For a Friend Across the Ocean

No other words needed - this is for a Friend living in Taos, Faith Welsh.
She is a caring human being, a most creative artist of many talents, a cat person, a designer, spinner, knitter, painter, appreciates nature and glorious landscapes, mountains, rocks and trees and plants, the skies and seas, far-away places, foreign cultures - with her posts and her work she has helped me to overcome my homesickness for our former home in the country. This friendship circle is for her. I made it in October 2014.

Hopefully, I will one day be able to meet my friend in person:

Hope is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all.

~ Emily Dickinson

TEXTILE ART BERLIN II

The TEXTILE ART BERLIN presented the work of amazing textile artists. I would like to show you the creations of two more artists who participated in the exposition. Click here for all posts with the topic Textile Art Berlin

Hildegard Braatz: 9-Patch 1. Old Lace Fragments and hand-dyed fabric

Hildegard Braatz - quilt artist extraordinary. An interview with her can be found here, also more pictures of her beautiful, unusual quilt creations.Click here for her personal website. Some of her quilts combine handmade paper with pieces of antique lace and embroidery - and she sells small treasure packages with different lace snippets and pieces so you can fulfil your personal lace dream collage!  (hildegard.braatz@quiltware.de). The pictures are by Hildegard Braatz.

Hildegard Braatz - Spitzencollage - Lace Collage

Hildegard Braatz - Spitzencollage - Lace Collage

Another artist presenting her work at the TEXTILE ART BERLIN was Eva Lippert. She is catching and weaving textile dreams on a small table loom, combining treasures such as beads, lace, yarns, feathers etc. into glistening, precious pieces of jewellery-like cuffs or long wrist / arm warmers. If you wish to own some of her creations, write to her at: evalippert56@googlemail.com

Cuffs by Eva Lippert

Aren't these cuffs just magic: each one is different and it takes time to discover and sufficiently admire all those lovingly added details. I stood at the glass vitrine that held some of her creations for a long time and found it so hard to leave, especially since a small and very pretty girl was dancing around in the booth, bringing a smile to everybody's face!

The next two pictures are by Eva Lippert:

Eva Lippert: Fireworks. Woven arm warmers

Eva Lippert: Rosengarten. Woven cuffs.

TEXTILE ART BERLIN I

Moving - The secret of getting positive feelings for that next home town to be: Find something beautiful about it every day, and accept but don't judge the differences. In addition to the overwhelming and loving welcome by our daughter who welcomed us with a glass of champagne and in the otherwise empty apartment had set up a mini-kitchen, complete with stove, small icebox, pots and pans, plus table and chairs, I found it easy so far to find more delights and exciting events every day since we moved to Berlin.

Picture by Textile Art Berlin

Right after we arrived, it was all those magnificent trees lining many streets and adorning parks large and small. Last Sunday, it was a visit to TEXTILE ART BERLIN 

Picture by Textile Art Berlin

Unquestionably, it was a true treasure trove of textile craft masterpieces: quilting, weaving, knitting, crochet, sewing, felting, beading, embroidery, tatting, macramé, the little known craft of Margarete lace (also called Margarete knotting (English site: see here, German site: see here), and many more of the astounding number of manual crafts. And of course there were all those yarns and books and tools of the trade! Cross-stitch samplers, bags, belts, hand-knit or silk scarves, felted hats and jackets, paper maché sculptures... I drifted through the halls and rooms with a permanent happy smile on my face and beyond a time concept, talked to some of the artists and bought virtually everything in sight for my insatiable visual memory storage space - it was wonderful experiencing this staggering wealth of colors, textures and fabrics. Next year I will try and participate in some of those workshops given by participating artists.

First visual impressions - enticing posters all over the town!

Did someone mention the colors of the Lauragais? :-)

The posters promised no more than they could keep - a multi-page catalogue might have done just honor to the wide artistic range of the exposition.

Quilts were presented in traditional and modern patters, from the trusted log cabin to innovative creations with 'windows' in the quilt as part of the design. To my delight a highly innovative project done by Karola Rose jointly with Horst Schulz was also shown at TEXTILE ART BERLIN:

Detail: Quilt by Karola Rose and Horst Schulz

The quilt is called "Ein Festtag auf dem Lande" (A Festive Day in the Country), the fabric work is done by Karola Rose and the knitted work by Horst Schulz. English information: click here for free patchwork instructions and here for one of the Horst Schulz Ravelry Groups. He is the true inventor of short-thread modular knitting: see some of his work here or check out book clubs, his books are much sought after.

Detail: Quilt by Karola Rose and Horst Schulz

Quilt by Karola Rose and Horst Schulz

A swinging, jazzy golden and black quilt from Ingrid Wieland caught everybody's eyes!

"Quadriga" by Ingrid Wieland

Within the framework of a French competition, this striking quilt is a perfect example of how to freeze movement into fabric and yet give the impression of constant motion. The jazzy music and swinging dance movements are superbly picked up by the design itself. The prize-winning  quilt is handcrafted with great expertise, precision and exactitude. The use of colors is accentuates the quilting effect in a well-balanced scale. A quilt full of joie de vivre!

"Die heilige Familie" by Ingrid Wieland

Another masterpiece by Ingrid Wieland is the above patchwork, made of neckties of various materials.
Called "The Holy Family", this quilt was awarded first prize by the Bischoff Heinrich Tenhumberg Stiftung, which is involved in providing help to needy families and single parents. The silky appearance of the patches makes it shine into the darkest corners, a beautiful reference to the title and religious background, and goal of the foundation.

More pictures of the treasures shown at TEXTILE ART BERLIN in the next post, click here for Textile Art Berlin II and here for Textile Art Berlin III.

Life is not a Labyrinth

There is an essential difference between a labyrinth and a maze. Even good dictionaries ignore the difference but historians and fans of such intricately woven webs of pathways will be quite passionate about the definitions. Here you have it in a nutshell.

A Famous Maze

Maze:  "With a history stretching back to the late Middle Ages, puzzle mazes, like labyrinths, were simple at first, then underwent periods of rapid development. Developed initially from medieval labyrinth designs, the earliest mazes in the gardens and palaces of Europe were designed by rearranging the walls of a labyrinth to create a pathway with choices; often including a number of dead-ends."

Labyrinth: "Popular consensus also indicates that labyrinths have one pathway that leads inexorably from the entrance to the goal, albeit often by the most complex and winding of routes. These unicursal designs have been known as labyrinths for thousands of years, and to qualify as a labyrinth, a design should have but one path. 

Below is the famous Labyrinth of Ravenna - try it, you won't get lost but come out where you started!

 One could say that LIFE is most probably not so much a labyrinth but a very extended maze through which we wander and attempt to find the best route to take. Although most certainly not the shortest or the sweetest, the most rewarding one will be the one opening up new horizons and adventures, acquiring friends and wisdom. Dead-ends of mazes are no dead-ends for me - they were choices of paths and directions, turning into chances to pick up new experiences on the way there and back, looking at the other side of what we think we already know!

Gillian Hill: Felted and Embroidered Collar

I always loved wandering through unfamiliar towns and cities, listening to the new sounds, the language, the bird songs, looking at the gardens, the houses, the people - with interest and curiosity. On one of those walks through the town of Clitheroe (UK) I chanced upon a house with a sign in the window, that this bookstore was closing down.

Gillian Hill: Felted and Embroidered Collar

I always loved wandering through unfamiliar towns and cities, listening to the new sounds, the language, the bird songs, looking at the gardens, the houses, the people - with interest and curiosity. On one of those walks through the town of Clitheroe (UK) I chanced upon a house with a sign in the window, that this bookstore was closing down. While I was standing there a lady (Gillian Hill) arrived and smilingly invited me in. I gladly followed and this truly must have been a short stretch of a maze turning into a labyrinth: I just knew I had been looking for a place like that and had finally found it.

Gillian Hill: Felted and Embroidered Collar

Please read the article in the Burnley Express, relating the story of Gordon and Gillian Hill:
Gordon and Gillian Hill had run a bookstore, an "Aladdin's cave of rare and elusive volumes". But not only that! The upstaires textile art gallery held further treasures - truly a dreamlike combination of literature and textile crafts. Their life history is a-maze-ing, the door to one career closing, another opening, making decisions along the way, based on their success as booksellers and textile craft work.

 

Gillian  Hill: Felted and Embroidered Collar

I was lucky to have met that lovely couple before they closed their shop, and I wished I could have invested heavily in all of their treasures just to be able to look at them every day. I bought a few books and the above really beautiful felted and embroidered collar made by Gillian Hill. If you are interested in purchasing it, please contact me. The proceeds will go to charity: Spinal Research Center. And please don't forget to enroll in Wings for Life World Run on 4 May, 2014 - wherever you are!

Gillian Hill - Felted and Embroidered Collar

Fragile February Flowers

Winter appears to be the longest season on the northern half of the globe. Those rare sunny days seem to lift our spirits instantly and make us realize just how beautiful the world is with flowers in all colors. Maybe those long winters were one of the reasons for those colorful garments on Scandinavia, such as the Finnish national costumes, to be so bright, the red offset by white and lots of embroidery. With those images in mind I thought of an especially bright and colorful heart to work against winter chills...

I made a couple of Valentine hearts as a cheerful reminder that spring is coming soon! The first one is a crochet heart with whipstitch embroidery. The eggshell colored cotton is 8-ply, while the other cotton yarns are all 2-ply, in the predominant colors of Finnish costumes. Isn't the lace edging of the white handcherkief lovely!

And the second one is crocheted as well, just the thing to send to someone special in a snail-mail letter with your good wishes!

And how about a little dance, waltzing in a triangle to get prepared for those early spring festivals, outdoor cafès, music and light-blue skies ? Here is an unusual pas-de-trois!

Festive Days

After a Cold and Frosty Night

Festive days are ahead of us. The beginning of a new year is steering our thoughts away from the past into the future. But it is also a good time to reflect and to make plans for the coming twelve months. If we take the spirit of peace on earth and goodwill toward mankind into the days, weeks and months that lie ahead we can have hope, ultimately, that present woes will subside, wars will come to an end, crime rates will abate, and the fate of children around the world will improve. Kindness goes a long way. Making the difference between despair and hope for just one other person has a tremendous impact. Like every year I will join you in trying.

Winter Days in the Lauragais

My mother loved embroidery. Christmas, Easter, birthdays - these were special occasions for her to select new colors of embroidery floss and buy beautiful patterns, which she either bought preprinted on linen like this "Millieu"

Cross Stitch Embroidery

or counted the stitches in like in this embroidered bell pull decoration brought out during the four weeks of Advent.

Bell Pull Advent Decoration

During the time her three children were small she had no outside help at all but she still found time to sit late at night and knit, crochet, embroider or follow other textile crafts she knew. The baby bib below is white work, and I admire especially the way she made the closure, a small mother-of-pearl button and a loop fashioned with buttonhole stitches.

Whitework Bib, ca. 1939

I would like to thank all readers of this blog for visiting and 

leaving comments.I made many wonderful discoveries myself 
by following my favorite blogs and finding new ones.

All best wishes to you for the Holidays and the coming year 2013!