"Memory"

When the theme "Memory" came up, an older quilt came to my mind. It was done in 2009, and it is FULL of memories of my childhood and my mother (who passed away in 2005). The finished quilt never made me happy, it was done, but ... well, I was just not happy with it. The fabrics are scraps from the clothes of my mother and my own hand-dyed fabrics; the bigger rectangles and squares were cut from a picture I took with my very first camera on a walk with my mom and our dog.
Here's a picture of that quilt before I took it apart:

It was not quilted, just tied with buttons from the button-box of my mother. I got rid of all the buttons and separated the layers. Added a border (from a fabric I inherited from my mother in law) and enlarged the back.
Than, I quilted it - finally I had an idea how to quilt this one (and the ability to fulfill that idea!):

Next came an overlay ... done on organza, with help of a tear-away-stabilizer on the back. I got a scan from the verse my mother had written into my poetry album when I was a child, enlarged it and stitched it by machine onto the organza.
Now the organza is mounted on top of the quilt. And I have finally a quilt that I love and that puts a smile on my face.
The verse is German ... and it speaks about what my mother wanted for me and my life. She wanted laughter (that word appears three times in that verse!), she wanted happiness and sunshine for me. I'm pretty sure that most mothers want these things for their kids, of course - but when I read that verse again after she passed away, it meant the world to me. And it helped me to get along with my sadness.

Here's a detail shot:

Thanks for the opportunity and the nagging to made this quilt finally into a piece I love ! It will live on the wall in our bedroom ;-))

"Time" - Tempus fugit

When I learnt about the challenge theme "time", thoughts about how we all have a certain amount of time in our life, in our days. I found this beautiful fabric with the clocks on it - and I knew I wanted to use it. Next came the idea of certain incidents in our lifes - happy ones, not so happy ones. Big ones, smaller ones - and the clock fabric was cut, another fabric was inserted. Nice! Next thing that came to my mind was - a river. So I added some "river fabric" - Yes, I liked it! but still - it needed a bit more of that "time" - thing. How about an hourglass? - yes. But I wanted to give the impression of looking through glass ? - so let's use a very thin sheer fabric! for the sand, I used beads. Some of them are sewn onto the piece, but most of them are just "filled in", so they can move around. The edges were treated with my favourite method - zigzag with decorative yarns.

A detail shot - shows off the stamped letters "TEMPUS FUGIT"

Working on this challenge piece was exactly what I had hoped for ;-)) I had a lot of fun, I got a lot to think about, and I like the result. Besides that, I'm not absolutely happy with it. Maybe that's the reason why I already ordered another piece of the fabric with the clocks on it? I have a bigger version of it in mind ... And I can hardly wait to start with it! Now I'm off to look at the other challenge pieces ;-))

Architextur - and an introduction

It was just a short time ago that I became a member of this group ... and when I read about the theme that was due on Feb. 24th, I had to grin. Because - I had already done a quilt to that theme! About a year ago, and it measures about 1 m square.

"Architextur" was the challenge of the MainQuiltFestival in 2011. The quilt was due Dec 2010, and I was late, as I'm quite often. The quilts were not allowed to be shown before the exhibition, so I worked on it secretly and blogged only little bits of information. In the end - that quilt never made it to the exhibition, because I messed up, big time. DH and me were able to save it, so at least it became hang-able. It now lives in our office /guest room in our home.

This trainstation was the inspiration for the quilt. I commute to work every day, so I see this building quite often. The fabrics are hand-dyed, and I transferred surface textures from different parts of the station with paintsticks. As our station is an pretty old station, you can find lots of different patterns - I had fun, and was even joined by a little guy who helped out ;-))

The piecing of the quilt included some troubles, but I was able to solve them. I started quilting the top in the fine light lines, and everything was well. But (you knew there would be a but, don't you?) - than I started to quilt the dark strips. I wanted them to resemble wood ... and I did dense quilting ... more like "intense machine stitching" ... and when I realized that my quilt was now happily waving at me, it was too late. So, no quilt of mine at that show - but by pulling it taut over stretchers, it did not go to waste.

Ok - now some information about me. I live in the southern part of Germany with my husband and two cats. English is not my first language, so I might make mistakes ... sorry for this !! When I'm not working for a paycheck, I'm chasing my creative dreams. Quilting became my creative outlet about 15 years ago. First I sewed traditional quilts, but soon those got a twist towards a more modern style. In 2009 I started art quilting - and I never looked back. Recently I realized why quilting became so important to me, the link to that specific blog post is here. And this is the link to my blog - I try to blog at least 3 times a week. I'm glad to be now a member of this group - looking forward to our next challenge!