Seduced by color... Mea culpa, mea culpa

Not so long ago, I made a pledge to use worn, given, second hand and inherited cloth. But then...
I had the intention to do some appliqué leaves between the birds. I find it very laborious to do appliqué, and I admire the patience that is manifested in Barbara's "Trellis". But I wanted to turn the middle of this piece into a joyful natural surrounding where the birds can play. The background, even quilted, doesn't look joyful enough to me. The flying birds need some more of these "Tibetan" clouds from Indonesia. This is why I surrendered and, with a tragical tremble in my voice, said to myself: "You have to get these fabrics". I broke my pledge. Hit me.
The Bird Quilt top is almost finished. No more large gaps, only small strips to be finished. It is large enough to allow a nap together with J on the sofa, both covered up. Now I'll cut this Turkish bedcover apart and give the quilt a one-cloth backing and a binding.
The boxes on the edge are houses, limitation of natural space, as I experience them, but also refuge and the way to survive winter in this latitude. They limit the bird's environment. Some get used to it like blackbirds or the heron who kept standing silently at his pond, when we walked by on Sunday.

Sudden Appearance of a Blue Bird

Young goats and a puddle of blood

Joseph's brothers took the blood-stained coat back as an evicence of his death. They killed a young goat for the purpose. Here, the chosen goat rests by a water with a weird colour, taken from a fabric in Japanese style.
I cut a paper stencil for the goat and tried to transfer acrylic paint on the cloth. That was not all that satisfying. So I cut out another silhouette and fused it to the red background. This cloth turned out to be very fringy, even when fused. So the result is not quite what I wanted it to be.

This morning, my little parcel came, containing my Windsor & Newton Gouaches. And the bill. 42 Euro = about 56 $. Outch. But the pink and purple are very close to the desired shades. And there is gold, a beautiful spring green, deep cool blue, black, red. Another boxing day!
I'll start saving from now on. Because my mind is eased.

Olive tree from Tuscany, I took this picture in 2002 in Pieve d'Elici near Lucca. Hello, Darlene, this one is for you!

More quilting on Joseph's coat

One of the Pharao's dreams were the cows. I surrounded it by fanatic quilting. Fusing saves time, I put it into quilting. Also the wheat spikes are surrounded by straw-like structures. The calligraphy is a little pathetic, it says: "Time will not undo guilt. Expiation can never end unless the guilt is forgiven. Only victims and their heirs can forgive. Guilt is not inherited, but responsibility continues the ties between the heirs of the criminals and the heirs of the victims." (schuld wird nicht durch zeit gesühnt, nur vergebung hebt sie auf. vergebung wird nur gewährt durch den, der die tat erlitt - oder seine erben. nicht schuld erben die nachfahren der schuldigen, aber doch verantwortung. so bleiben sie gebunden bis zur vergebung)
This criticizes a specific German point of view because too many people in our country like to say: "There has to be an end to remembering at last -- forgiven and forgotten..." But they don't have the moral high ground to say so.

I added a fused and appliquéed image. The lion attacks a man. The field behind them will be filled red. This looks much better than the painted parts, I'll go on with this technique in the future. Although it takes quite some work. I found the lion on an Egyptian stone carving and added a human shape like I thought it might fit, from my own imagination, made a drawing on paper, perforated the lines and used a little powder bag with blue pigment to copy the lines onto the cloth, made the drawing complete with a fine brush pen, ironed Wonder Under onto the cloth, cut the silhouette -- yes, I cut the paper, Melody, sorry! -- and fused it on. Then I fixed the outline with small stitches. -- I demonstrated the method on white cloth, but initially carried it out on the orange material.