Back to the Snake

You remember the Reptile Quilt, don't you? I put it aside thinking about the backing. And about a batting, if any at all. Then I found this golden brown Indonesian fabric that I bought for 40$ in Berlin on a flea market. It is about 2 1/2 yards length. So I took part of it and just basted it on the reverse of the snake quilt (red thread). I chose the olive golden Turkish nylon thread. As the front has a quilting of its own, I let most of the thread run inside. A waste in some way. The pictures don't really show how nicely the golden bits shine on the surface. I follow the lines of the pattern; so it is not as boring as I was afraid it would be; have been procrastinating this job for months.

Vanity walk in the park

If I just walk five minutes, I'm in a park which used to be the green of a horse racing ground. Now, there are nice houses around where the races used to take place with a vast park in the middle.

 I took two quilts out to take photographs -- here are some.

To be honest: I made a knot on the reverse
to keep the quilt from being blown
into the ditch

Pondering over fabric choice

I've been rummaging my drawers for days, trying to find the right fabric for the reverse. There would also have to be an ever so light batting, just a thin layer. And I want the work to be fun and not boring, I do it all by hand, after all.
So, in order to make it fun, I decided to do a larger-piece korak for the reverse with a broad frame of the golden fabric in the picture. The work goes fast, and if I abstain from quilting it all, it will take less time than the top. I'm afraid it will be a heavy piece!

The moon is close to being full, and the color was supernatural tonight. Sorry for the blur, it is a zoom with hand-held camera.

Binding

I love to sew the binding. But I will probably not do another one in satin. It is so difficult, I can see the limits of my skills.
I find it pleasant to do these small stitches. It is the same technique I use for the whole korak sewing.
I'm still thinking about a backing fabric. And I know I'll have to quilt or tie it from the reverse. Last time I did that it was on the Bauhaus quilt, and doing the backing quilting was a proof of my patience, indeed. But it has to be done!

Tibetan Astrology: "This is a day when oppression may be felt. Strife indicated. Good for important requests. Avoid secrecy and plotting. Stay away from crowds."
Any readers in Egypt?

Thank you for your kind comments...

...although I've been boring you with the same issue for months. I tried to sleep under the snake quilt on top of the bird quilt, so I had three quilts on my butt -- I had to get rid of the birds very soon, they did not like the company of the reptiles at all. I had funny dreams as most every night, one was about losing weight easily, going down to sizes I was last wearing at the age of 14, but safe and sound. The only thing I did not like about it was that I was wearing grey (a colour I don't like, exept in very dark or very light shades, close to black or white). What is the conclusion? I have to do more bed quilts, so I can give away those that start fighting with my favourite ones. I haven't decided yet which of these is my favourite.
P.S. The wall paint is bright lemon yellow.

A prospect of the finished quilt

Although the head (lower part of picture) part is not attached yet, this is a prospect of the quilt in the final stage. What is left to be done: striped part to be quilted, backing fabric to be chosen, probably no batting, then basting, binding and backside quilting -- one stitch per inch or 1 1/2", the yarn between the stitches will be kept inside the quilt. I have no idea what fabric the reverse will end up with. OMG, while I finish one, others do 10 of them...

Jobs

This is why you haven't heard from me for a week or so: I've been busy with my Stolperstein job for the memorial hour on Jan 27. I'm preparing a kind of digital slide show for our district parlament. It is about murdered citizens, not only Jewish, but also about political resistance and a mentally disabled young man who was regarded to be a "useless life".
I put up a show for 6 people to be remembered. In 3 cases, we don't even have a photograph. Just a name in a list, in a telephone book or a letter kept by relatives. Their prosecutors wanted them to be forgotten, but reminding of them is more than a job to me.

When I have time, I work on the last stripe for the reptile quilt. Lovely gifts from the New World! Scraps from wonderful artist and cherished person Rayna. My latest inspiring treasure. Guess my future work will look different. These scraps give me looks for being put among the other stuff like a film star who finds herself riding on a suburban train.

New squares for the quilt's head

A dragon's tail in the larger pic... I'm running out of dragons and snake skins. There is this little chap, hand painted, and there are the iguana and other snakes who went to a party. Here, you see the squares still unquilted.
Maybe I'll do my next korak unquilted, because the double layers of the folded parts make it more sturdy than a quilt of traditional making. In this project, I like the quilted structure of the satin parts because they also have something reptilic.
I had intended to stick to the stash and not purchase new fabrics. Ha!
My wish to create according to my own ideas has tricked me. I just couldn't resist Benartex, "Palace". Would you?

Holidays and back to daily life

Driving home for Christmas. We spent our holidays in my husband's hometown again. Temperatures were between -2 and -10° C/ 28 and 14° F. Jens had to scratch ice from the windscreen.

 About 5 or 6" snow. Unusual for our region, where we rather have warmer temps around Christmas, and people make bets whether it will be white or green.
We celebrate the evening of Dec 24th, so we arrived for coffee, then it was time to hand over the presents, we had a nice meal, and on Saturday morning we went to see J's old friends.
We went home to Hamburg on Saturday night after coffee.

 This evening, a garbage container started burning, it looked dramatic, but very soon was under control.

And I connected the latest strips to the quilt, you can see it at the foot of the quilt. And a ribbon with another magic spell is visible.

False Korak

The method I use for the reptile quilt is a kind of korak which is different from the tradition: 1. A true korak is made of doubled-up strips and squares, the squares folded diagonally, thus forming triangles. 2. A true korak will not be quilted.

Why do I abandon tradition in these two issues? (1.) Doubling up the scraps means to hide one half. Some of the fabrics I got from friends or bought long ago are too precious to be wasted. So I just fold it at the edge to create a seam, on the triangles as well. It requires only one seam, due to the method of covering the cut side with the next scrap, like laying tiles on a roof. --
Doubling the layers in smaller scraps means to stiffen the whole piece which may replace the (2.) quilting. But as I love the surface of hand quilted fabric and see this as the main purpose of quilting, I still do.

Some quilters are not so enthusiastic about the pin method. I tried basting, but it is double work since the scraps have to be held in place by pins anyway. The loop of the thread also loves to wrap around the pins. The fastest method to free it is to pull the pin out and put it back again. As always, the quilter can get used to the handling.
This is the next strip, going across the width of the quilt. Another, approximately symmetrical, will be added to the opposite side, as head and foot. This might reach the desired length already. Or some more will have to be added. Who knows? --
You're all deep in your Xmas preparations? Haha, I'm finished.

 My Japanese "cousin-in-law" gave me a pin cushion. It is a kind of embroidery that is called "kogin" and comes from the Tsugaru district in Japan. Here's a book on this craft. And here are some very beautiful samples.

The next step

The quilt is wide enough now, but it needs more than 1/2 yard  to be long enough for a sleep quilt. I think I will add zones of strips, alternating with more squares and reptile pictures. 

This is the plan, more or less.

A glimpse of the process

This is a new snakeskin patch as a whole, uncut. Until now, I showed them integrated into the quilt and covered with paint, adding a few more layers until the paint looks dense and dark. This piece is different, I wanted to keep the transparency and brightness of the colors. I made a few more reptile drawings and colored them, and there are some more Estonian spells to be cut in stripes and integrated into the quilt. The lizard isn't really cut off, it is just a portrait and ends more or less with the picture edge. The spotty background comes from ironing the cloth before it was dry which makes the steam create a pattern.
-- This is the view from the kitchen window this morning, temperatures going up and down around the freezing point. Later, there was bright sunshine.

Update of today's work:

True colors of my hometown

The photos in my latest posting about the reptile quilt were a little too strong, too red. The quilt isn't quite so, but good photo light is rare these days. I dedicate the choice of colors to my hometown. Copper-covered roofs are common on larger buildings, and the climate with grey skies contributes to the magic effect of this color. Brick red is the other prevailing color because clay is a traditional material which was a lot easier to find in this landscape than stone -- exept diluvial granite rocks.

Here is St. Katharinen church near the harbour.
Another material found quite often is a sandstone or lime stone in a subdued yellow.
Somehow I feel at home in these colors, although I never thought they would be favourites of mine.
Why do I find them related to snakes? There is a snake called copper snake or slowworm. And maybe it is because of a bronze sculpture in our local zoo. It shows two snakes that got entangled so heavily with each other that both died. A sign of bad surveilance of animals which would probably not happen today. I used to stare at it when I was a child, oscillating between horror and enthusiasm, stroking the metal bodies.

Could my hometown be a naga place?
If these are the local spirits, they are said to provide wealth, but also to be moody.
I will not test their mood by incorporating real snake skin, although there is a little piece resting in my drawer. But something tells me not to. Did I see a twinkle?

WIP

It is so much fun  to construct and sew the squares. The right row is not yet connected with the quilt because I find it much easier to do the quilting on a smaller piece than in connection with a large space.

Print more of those

Printing, ironing, painting, ironing, more printing. These layers stiffen the cloth and make it more difficult to hand quilt. But the details have become quite charming, some by coincidence. I had to show them before I cut into them. They are not so snakish as a whole piece, but in detail they will be.