More personal pages

Even before starting my felting adventures I had several more personal pages for the altered book finished. I only now find the time to present them. For the back pages I did not use photos from our family but vintage photos. The theme of mother and daughter is a general one and by presenting other women and children I think it is more generalized. The photo showing that baby is a real beauty I bought at ebay - it dates from 1828! I don't know if it shows a boy or girl, but that doesn't really matter. The bracelet below is the original bracelet my daughter received upon birth. The poem which so hauntingly replays my own feelings at that time was written by Caroline Sheridan Norton(1808-1877), a Victorian writer and poet.
Actually the book is now bound and finished! It went together more smoothly than I had hoped for. Alas my camera which was seriously hurt when I fell over the thresh hold of a Scottish castle last year (gaping up into the second floor where only a fireplace in the wall showed there w a s a second floor) is at present all but cooperative. When I press the release button, the bottom of the camera opens and the batteries fall out! We will be making a visit to my parents this weekend and I hope that either my father or my brother will be able to fix this mess.

Felt

I just returned from a felting class with my favorite local teacher, Gabi Tisch. (Well, not exactly local, but she is living and teaching a mere 20 km from where I live.) This is the starting material - dyed silk. There is also some painted linen which will be a scarf to accompany the jacket that is to be stitched from the felted material.

The dyed silk was first layered with wool and afterwards with multicolor roving containing a little bit of silk, too.


Wetting, pressing with bubble foil and then felting rendered a beautiful and extremely lightweight felt that will give a very interesting jacket I think.

Felted brooch

I felted this brooch for a friend of mine who invited to a belated birthday party. Several weeks ago I made a similar brooch for myself but somehow forgot to make a photo and blog it (this will happen one of these days). These colors are my favorite - somehow I cannot help but use bright oranges in most of the things I create in form of accessories. Yellow is the color I really love most of all - but that is a difficult color to use, especially in everyday situations. Although come to think of it I bought a bright yellow linen top one of these days, perfect for the summer. However I would not have done so had not my DH and the shop owner insisted that it looked good on me.

Altered book

At present I am trying to decide on the order of the pages for this book. At first I considered putting the personal pages just in between. However, "Die Häschenschule" is constructed in a way that on one side there is the text, on the other side the according picture. It would be unwise to pull them apart. On the other hand, when I just add the personal pages to the front or back of the book, there is no real continuity. Any ideas out there?

Altered book continued

The altered book is coming along nicely. The longer I work on it, the more fun it is to add to the pages.
The personal pages are something other altogether. It hurts. My mother has been dead for over 23 years, and yet.... I wish she could see her grandchildren. (Although who knows, perhaps she does down from a cloud...) I wish I could go to her and show her what I am doing. I wish I could tell her "you were so right".... I wish that I could show her that now I understand what she meant when she told me things which at that time I just shrugged off.

Journey

Just returned from a trip to lake Constance. On our way we visited an outdoor museum showing a large number of old farmhouses. Imagine, they dismantle the houses, transport them to the museum and build them again there! I love museums of this kind where you can see how people were living and working in the past. Mind you, I would not have wanted to live in that time! Most probably would have died giving birth to our oldest daughter. And it was an extremely hard time for women. Not only were they expected to cook, tend to their garden, work in the field, rear the children, spin, weave and sew the family's clothes, they also had to wait hand and foot on their husband. Definitely nothing for me! (I hate gardening.)
Surprisingly these people very lovingly decorated even everyday items. Somehow they found the time to stitch a border onto a skirt, to paint their trunks and cupboards. I wonder how they managed to find the time for that.
In the museum they actually raise pigs and cattle, they cook in the kitchens (would hate that, too, everything is extremely dark, I constantly knocked my head because rooms are so low, there is no running water and the oven produces not only heat but stinks as well.) I managed to make a photo from a pair of horses dragging an awfully long trunk, although my camera at that time was constantly warning of a low battery status and thus shutting itself off.

An act of random kindness across the ocean

That is what Sue Bleiweiss called it. For me it was a total surprise and delight. Sue had made some beautiful books which she showed on her blog. I added a comment because I very much liked what was shown. (I have to say that I love all her books - that is why I took a class with her in order to learn how to make them myself.)Okay, back to our exchange via the internet. Sue wrote back to tell me, she would send me the book which I liked best. At first, I did not understand her correctly - she really meant to send it to me as a gift.
So have a look at what reached me today. I am still speechless. This book is so beautiful - the vintage look, the papers (old French letters!), the photos... I am in heaven.

Altered book continued

This project is coming along rather nicely. After my first inhibitions I now rather enjoy to doodle, stamp, paint, glue and write onto the pages.


I also started the first personal pages. The background was made by painting watercolor paper with gesso and acrylic paint in several layers. I do not have many photos from my mother, therefore actual photos are only on three pages. The other pages are made with copies from vintage photos.

A scare at ebay

Sometimes you get really nice surprises when bidding at ebay. One of these days I bought a book for just 1 € - seems nobody else wanted it. I just wanted it to tear the pages out for my collages. (Uuups, I hope none of my books heard this....)
This evening I had a real scare. Lesley Riley was offering several Dover books with interesting illustrations for just a couple of dollars. I really wanted these and therefore made my bid. It was only after having done so that I realized that shipping from the US to Germany would be nearly 50 $! (More than double the amount of my bidding) Somehow I had thought that the price had included shipment - stupid me! Those were some very anxious minutes I waited for someone else to outbid me. It did happen at last, but only at the last second - boy was I grateful!
So everybody take a good look when buying something at ebay - shipment might be an issue.

I did something terrible

Books are something special for me. I love them, I need them, I hoard them. I get nervous when I know there are only about 5 books left I haven't yet read. Seems I am addicted.
Now this book is something very special. German readers will surely know it. It is called "Die Häschenschule" which means school for rabbits or rather hares. As a child this was one of my favorite picture books.

That is the reason why my mother gave it to me when I was expecting my first daughter. She had been diagnosed with cancer even before my marriage. It was three years later when I was pregnant. I suppose she somehow knew that she would not last long enough. In fact she died about four weeks before my eldest was born.
And now, I dismantled this book!

I took out all of the pages, I cut them to size, I did a color wash on the inside of the covers....

I am stamping onto the pages, gluing things in, writing with gel pens. I gave mother hare some glasses and imported the rabbit herald from "Alice in Wonderland".

In fact, I am altering this book. I will include some extra pages with photos from my mother, myself and my eldest daughter, thus showing the way from mother to daughter to mother. I always wanted to make a piece of art in remembrance of my mother without being too sad, too kitschy, too reverently... This might be it.

I just can't resist

Better than Campbell's soup

Challenge quilt

Our patchwork group - Grünstadt Quilters - has its 25th anniversary today. That is really rather old for a German patchwork group. We will have an exhibition in November. The group was called upon to make a challenge quilt with a K. Fasset- fabric,green Lutradur and a mix of seed beads. The only rules were to include the number 25 any which way and the size of the quilt (which was not to be larger than 60 x 60 cm). This is my quilt.

Sex and the City

Went with a friend to see that film. My daughter was exasperated - she thinks this is not something you should invest valuable time in. Well, we liked it very much! And now I found this Blogthing - I had to share it.

You Are Most Like Charlotte!

You are the ultimate romantic idealist You've been hurt before, but that hasn't caused you to give up on love. If anything, your resolve to fall in love is stronger than ever. And it's this feminine optimism that men find most appealing about you. Romantic prediction: That guy you are seeing (or crushing on)? Could be very serious - if you play your cards right!

Which Sex and the City Vixen Are You?

Make a Smilebox postcard

Paperwork

One of the things I really love in online classes is the variety of links you can collect. Here is one which brings a whole new meaning to the word of paperwork:papercut
Have fun looking!

Wordl

This is the quote I want to put on the first page of my journal for the class with Sharon: Artists forge their way into the darkness fueled by creativity, leaving rainbows in their wake.
With Wordl text can be set up in various colors, fonts and directions which you can see when clicking on the the above.

Color wheel

One of the exercises for the Studio Journal class was doing a color wheel. Since my last color wheel for City & Guilds was some time ago I painted a new one. I keep forgetting the correct applications for terms like "split complementary", so I decided to enter the key words to the color wheel and glue this into my journal, so I will have them handy.
Unfortunately the paper from the journal I bought is not heavy enough to tolerate watercolors. I tried a wash for the first page and the paper buckled and stayed that way even after it dried. I think I will have to glue several pages together, try gesso or glue more heavyweight paper into the journal since I want to have some color experiments in there, too.

Frottage

Sounds like something to eat, doesn't it? Actually it is something everyone did as a kid, I think: Laying paper upon a structure and then rubbing with a pencil to get the outline and surface.
This is one of the exercises we have to do - or rather which are suggested to do - in an online class with Sharon Boggon at joggles.com called Studio Journals. I have been working with a sketch book on and off (lately rather off) and thought that training in a class would perhaps help me to keep up journaling on a more regular basis.

Zentangle

Ever heard of "Zentangle"? This is kind of a philosophy combining doodles and the idea of Zen. You try to fill every piece in a given design with another overall design. This takes time and you are to enjoy the process (live in the here and now). Drawing is done with a very fine Micron pen on exquisite heavy paper. I enjoy this process when I am stuck with an idea or just have no inclination to really work in my studio. You can do this for hours (although my neck starts screaming after a certain time) or just for a few minutes.
For the materials needed and for inspiration look up www.zentangle.com

Origami book

So this is one of the diversions I mentioned in my last post. It is a really tiny book (1 1/2" square) which is totally folded. No glue, no tacks, nothing. I found the kit at www.greenchairpress.com and had quite a lot of fun after I managed to work out how it was meant to be. (Believe me, that took some time. I am totally lost when it comes to spatial sense.)
Sorry that the picture of the interior (small pages you just insert which I decorated with paper inchies) is upside down. It was too dark outside to make a new photo when I realized that.

Another birthday

Seems that I am constantly working for friends - or rather their birthdays ;-)
But I have been busy otherwise, too. One of these days I will show you pictures of some artistic diversions I took.

Friendship

For my best friend's birthday I made this small wallhanging. I know that she loves nostalgic things, so I thought this a perfect gift. In hindsight it would have been better had I not chosen the background fabric with the small roses on it. It rather competes with the appliqué and stitching. Alas, too late! I hope she will like it nevertheless.

Finshed

Finally the quilt is finished. Since this piece is going to hang on a slightly curved wall I did not quilt all three layers. The center piece was quilted on the batting. Later on I added the borders, added batting to these, too, and then quilted only the borders with the background. I was afraid that quilting all three layers might make the wallhanging too stiff for the situation it was going to meet.
That is not the only reason why I haven't been blogging as regularly as before. My husband's computer is not working, so he is occupying my laptop all the time. Arrrrgh! I really look forward to the time my son is coming home. Between them they will hopefully be able to repair the other computer and give me free reign with my laptop again.