Beautiful presents

Look what I got from Chris Gray today! A beautiful card with Hindi letters and a mysterious sign. A line of Tibetan letters, Om Mani Padme Hum, and Buddha's Eyes. And a handwoven bookmark, with suiting typography:













I'm surrounded by talents! This is wonderful.

I thought I would not get it...

...but those microbes seem to have undergone a mutation since I had them, now they make me cough. I took a quick walk yesterday -- had to! Probably caught a little cold then.
But after all, it is done. I'll get old people's pension from May 1st. My walk took me to the application office.

Where's the Grand Canyon?

In Sinkyang, China.

"I'd like to have a question..."

(as a German comedian put it) ... about photo transfer. I have a b&w laser printer, enough Wonder Under, and no money to buy transfer paper or foil. Would it work, o wise women, if I iron a paper laser print onto Wonder Under, put the piece into water over night, rub the paper off and iron this thing onto cloth? Anyone ever tried such a mess?
PS. I don't have an ink printer.

Poor Darling

The flu has come from Berlin and knocked my poor husband down. He feels awful. I am careful about possible infection, but not afraid, because I think it is exactly the same thing I had only weeks ago. So there is nothing much to blog exept this work of art...

Photo job

A friend of mine asked me to take a photo series of his father's glass collection. His father lives in an old people's home and can't take everything with him, so my friend tries to find out which are the most valuable things. So yesterday and today I took hundreds of pictures. The family worked for the glass factory Loetz in Bohemia before the war and kept a number of experimental samples. I think they are rare; I promised to find out.








P.S. In E-bay, there are some similar things, and they reach good prices. But I haven't seen anything exactly like this. Maybe they decided not to produce larger series, or history prevented that.
P.P.S. Most Loetz is in America. Possibly more than they produced.

My graffiti photos

Of course, graffiti have become an every day thing, and this is not what I was looking for. If you look at the first one, you see that even if the letters were sprayed white, they could not be so bright in the last evening light if they weren't silver and reflecting the western sky. -- Number two was in a backyard entrance in a 100 years old house. I loved the bright colours and the sun/eye like thing.
This is the most absurd graffiti I ever found, a stencil print on white paper. Zebra on the pot.

Fusing the spell

The letters are fixed by ironing and dyed with diluted acrylics. Not as brillant as I was hoping they would be. Then I fused them onto WU, cut the spell in stripes and fused them onto the gown.






I had considered to cut the gown up and resew it into a t-shape like the Joseph's Coat, but it did not allow me to.


So I fixed the spell along the edges. And I will have to sew all this because fused parts tend to separating from the base.
I let the spell run around the space, so it is turnt upside down at the lower edge and makes a 90°-turn like it was used on ancient inscription stones in Scandinavia.

I wrote that tradition in Estonia was oral. There was an exemption of wood cut runes, the calendar system; it went back more than 10200 years, back to the time when the land emerged from the water through postglacial events similar to those happening in Canada.

Just back from Cinema

We saw "Changeling". Very touching. I was close to tears sometimes. I appreciate it when a story, even though it has to transport cruel facts, remains decent in the way to perform the action. The horror is there, no need to emphasize. Yes! Great!



Riding to cinema by tube

Happy Valentine!

This is my Valentine for my readers! Have a very happy day and weekend.
My husband and I will enjoy this evening in cinema. And we have made a "contract". We used to have the Saturday as our shopping and cleaning day. One day, J. noticed that I was constantly weak on Saturdays and needed a rest, and he said, oh, yes, we can't go shopping, it is your weak day again." I hadn't noticed this before, but since he said that, I have been observing. Now that he is gone during the week, I started doing the cleaning and shopping on Friday, and I feel much better about it. Isn't it funny? I believe that it is natural law to rest on Saturdays. That's why I decided to keep to this habit in the future. And he will support me on Saturday, cook and do part of the shopping.

My valentine for my sweetheart husband is a pillow top (or whatever) that he asked me to do months ago; It is a painting by the German Bauhaus artist Josef Albers. I was hesitating, because I thought it would not be creative to do something that someone else had painted. But I found out that this combination of colours works well, and here is the result after less than 2 hours of work.










Until now, I have made a rule for myself that I would stick to the genuine purpose of a thing. If something is made out of fibers, I want to use it as a fiber thing, as a pillow, quilt, or clothing; I did not like the thought of putting an embroidery behind glass, unless it is more than 150 years old and in some way remarkable. I wonder if I can stick to this principle.
The wren has just done his daily inspection of our balcony. I took a bad picture from the shelter, but did not want to frighten this little chick and maybe interrupt his mission. Lovely!

About Magic

The project I started yesterday is about magic. But it is another research. I do not identify with this kind of magic, I don't conjure it, instead, I mirror it or inquire about it. 30 years ago, I was extremely interested in magic; I once took part in a divination, but to a greater extent, I performed a subconscious kind of love magic without using spells, joining a group or performing rituals. Yet, I was entangled into kind of active enchantment of lovers.
When I was 30, I had enough of the slightly paranoid, highly supersticious state of mind I was livin in. Moreover, it was not successful. I started meditation, then Zen, and about a year later converted to Buddhism. I deliberately ran down my magic state of mind and worked on creating a mind of understanding, compassion, and a non-magic eye level contact to other beings. I don't know how far I have succeded, but I'm working on it.
Now I find it harmless and interesting to research on the mechanics of magic. I've come a long way. Now I see even white magic as a trap that ties me to desire. Not to speak of black magic.

Later. (Musing: No comments yet...) Do you think this is an offensive subject?

Root printing and a new project. And: Stealing back "forbidden" signs

This is a rutabaga. I cut it into pieces with smooth edges. These letters are runes.









Why this? Right wing ambitions? Oh, no. I just feel that these traditional letters must be taken back into culture. The only way to free them from evil traditions is to start new ones, hopefully for the better.

I start printing an Estonian magic spell. This one was written down by the ethnologist Fr. Kreutzwald and published 1854. It is about subdueing anger and envy from others. Some of these spells were to make the dough rise well and help making butter; others were to protect the rural serfs from being beaten by their owner. -- These magic spells were not written in runes. They weren't written at all, because Estonians traded them by oral transmission. To use these letters is my own idea.

This is part of a new project. I used black thick textile paint which can be fixed by ironing, and plan to cut it in stripes and sew it onto the "Witches Gown". This is the name of my new project. As a base I want to use a piece of black cotton with kawry shells and a little embroidery which I made for myself as a thing to wear; then I did not really. This piece had other plans with me.

An unbelievably rich source on traditions is this Estonian online journal.

New Entry in Etsy

Biscornu is finished.
The difference from others is the fully embroidered surface, not only parts of it.

New Toy

Discovered by Neki Desu (see headline link).
I have always loved mirror caleidoscopes, but now I can't use mine like I did before I grew hyperopic.

Penelope stitching

My husband won't be far from me as long as Ulysses was. And there are no applicants hanging around. But I spend the day silently and stitching. Yes, another biscornu.

Weather Report

The snow fell, while the sun was coming through. It is not cold, the snow will be gone soon.

My Husband's Comment on Flying Carpet II

"Einstein was wrong. The center of a black hole is a quilt. Or, to put it in another way, time stands still in the environment of a quilt."

Flying Carpet II

Today this kind of UFO landed on my painting table. Some kind of quilters' Independence Day. Friendly aliens have given us the art of quilting... No, I know. The true meaning is that quilting is heavenly art.
I cannot deny that the way I painted the earth was influenced by Lisa Call.

See these amazing Quilts
Made in Japan or wherever -- this might have been done in any other country by extremely patient and painstakingly working artists. See also the group creating quilts in a "Japanese" style on a site discovered by Melody. Some of the pieces are incredibly beautiful, but not Japanese. There is a difference in style, even if you use the properly labeled fabrics.
This reminds me a little of the China-craze in the 18th century. It is a merging of styles and a lot more "western" than we might think. Sometimes, the result of this merge are beautiful.

Fighting on

God, I love quilting. Such a pleasant thing to do. Terry posted an important information: Some fabrics cause problems, turning out bulky when being quilted. Right. As a colour addict, of course I chose the brightest among my fabrics. Now they turn out to be anarchists and never to stick to the rules. Will I carry on fighting or give in and buy (bleah, what a word!!) fabrics that are more obediant? Will I be able to finish my living room nap quilt, or will it end up as a chair cushion? I don't know.
Susan suggested in her comment to separate the blocks by dark edges. I'm seriously thinking about this idea. In my head, it becomes a beautiful dark screen with bright squares. And it would make the work faster.

-- I added some embroidery to my Etsy items. One bracelet (the one with English sweets) was sent to England yesterday.
The husband is coming home this afternoon! :-)) I have to hurry with my housework.

No idea what it means, but it is so nice and silly

The music is haunting!

Plans

I'll be stitching on my nine-piece while I'm making plans on other projects. Because this is just an experiment and hopefully will lead to a nap quilt for the living room sofa. A project is something different. I have two ideas about something like Joseph's Coat, also legendary fibre pieces. The future piece is to have a story around it and a complex of symbols.

We want to read something pleasant

I have to apologize for yesterday's posting. We visit each other's blogs in order to find something nice, something beautiful that enhances our everyday life. After this dark and bloody chapter, I will go back to the pleasant side of life. I want to create something beautiful.
I'm working on my first hand-pieced quilt. And I intend to hand-quilt it, too. It will be a slow-cloth piece. I did the 2 blocks late at night. It is nice to be piecing by hand, no rattling of the sewing machine, but a quiet lap thing. A 45° angle nine-patch. Down-to-earth. In America, 8 years old kids can do it. I try. --

Later.
These tiles look kind of awful, although I like the combination. What if I don't make a huge top and put it on a huge batting and try to rule the sandwich with no experience, but try some new skills on a part of it, before it is finished?
I'll try something else. I quilt the tiles as single mini quilts and combine them afterwards. Mercy! It is my first quilt (if we forget about the dilettantic attempts I made 25 years ago). I hope this one will move you to tears.

She's not gonna do it, is she???

The Joseph's coat will be finished this afternoon.
What is this woman up to?














For Heaven's sake, what are you doing?








Now, this can dry nicely.



Aftermath, February 3rd

When I look at it now after drying, the acrylic paint has become darker; it is not obvious at first sight, but it is stiff and quite disturbing, yes, it does look a little shocking. Right, and this is intended. It is to make this old, old tale come alive. I had the intention to create a piece of evidence. A crime happened. And crimes go on. Although I use symbols of judaism, I try to move away from a one-sided point of view.
Part of the crime was to abuse parental care for selfish revenge. The killing is pretended. Deception. Another crime.
I created this as a kind of offering. I have sewed for hours and hours and then spilt acrylic paint over it. This is my offering. As I hang it up, I see it as a kind of magic reminder, a fetish of parental love and mourning. And I erect it as a memorial of this.

New Website: A journey to the USA in 1955

In 1955, when I was 6 years old, my father made a 3 months journey to the USA and took back a great number of slides, taken with his old Leica. As we did not have TV yet, this was one of my strongest impressions when I was very young.
I have no idea if -- beyond the personal memories -- these pictures are of any value, maybe they are quite banal. But they show how he saw "America" -- a continent that he seriously considered to emigrate to. In this little Website, you can see some of what he took back.

Today I finished the sewing...

... of the Joseph-Project. It doesn't look much different now from this picture. Now there is still something to be done, I'll show it to you later.
My first Etsy sale happened, a lady from Ohio will be using the pincushion during her work.