The Sliced Quilt I organized with the internet group Texies (we’re far more active in our closed Yahoo group than the blog leads one to believe) is finished and will soon be on display in England at Festival of Quilts.
We entered it into the juried Quilt 2008 contest because, even if it was not chosen, it could still be hung in the open Group Quilts category. It’s a good quilt and it was worth the effort to see if it would be chosen.

It wasn’t chosen.

I’m not disappointed though, because the reality of this quilt is that it is most definitely a group project. I think it will be perfectly placed in the group category, and maybe it will even find some other “sliced” friends.

“Juan’s Fruit Salad on a Sliced Table” 2008
by eight members of Texies, left to right, top to bottom: Kristin La Flamme, Cordula Klöfkorn, Edith Blaurock, Christiane Kühr, Erika Beetz, Birgit Friese, Susanne Neuhauser, and Elke Kollender.

While we were working on this, discussion was raging on some internet lists about copying other artists’ work. Arguments ranged from “copying the masters has long been a teaching tool,” to “a true artist needs only to look inward for inspiration.” Of course, issues of copyright raised their ugly head too.

Here’s what I was thinking when we embarked on this project:

First and foremost, I was curious about how an image could be translated into fabric. It is fascinating how differently eight (or eighty for that matter) people can interpret the same source material. I see the same thing in traditional quilting — eight quilts using the same pattern (such as a Bear Paw or Whig’s Retreat) and layout (on point, straight rows, etc) can look very different depending on fabrics chosen, quilting technique and pattern, and embellishments added or not.

We considered using a photograph taken by one of the group members as our source image, but agreed on two points that using an existing painting as our inspiration was the preferable route.

• Point one is that an existing painting would be “neutral ground.” No one could begrudge another in the group for providing an unbalanced composition, colors that clash, boring subject matter, etc. Nor would any one of us have more ownership of the finished quilt than the others.
• Point two was that recognizability would work in our favor. If the viewing audience was familiar with the original painting, then our individual textile interpretations would stand out all the more.

I found a sampling of paintings that have stood the test of art textbook- and poster manufacturer-time and presented the group with a half dozen works, ranging from the Dutch Masters through the Impressionists to Modern Art, that had enough of an overall composition that no one quilter would be shorted visual material. We voted and Juan Gris won. Consequently, we did not choose to interpret “Pears and Grapes on a Table” because we lacked artistic vision, we chose it because it supported our initial reason for embarking on this project. That of seeing what we could each do with fabric.

As for copyright issues, I do not claim to be an expert in this matter. In fact, I personally run from legalese as much as possible. However, I understand that copyright laws exist mainly to protect against copies of works that might be mistaken as the original thing and to ensure that proceeds gained go to the creator or rightful owner of said works.

To that end, this is not a reproduction of a Juan Gris painting. We do not want anyone to think that this is a Juan Gris painting. We do not even want to mislead anyone into thinking that Juan Gris made this quilt. Nor are we trying to convince anyone that the Texies created this composition out of our own imaginations. No, this is a fabric interpretation of a Juan Gris painting. That’s why we pay homage to him in the title. I hope that it is obvious to all viewers that there is no tomfoolery going on here.

I attempted to contact the current owner of the original painting, but only came up with a foundation in the name of the people who’s names were credited on several online sources. The foundation said that they did not own the painting and did not know who did, but if they DID own it they would see no copyright issues with our interpretation even if we wished to show it in public. If we wanted to show a photographic reproduction of the original next to our interpretation, then we might have issues and would probably need to credit the current owners and/or whoever made the reproduction. But our quilt in and of itself did not seem to pose a threat to any copyrights.

Americans who have researched current copyright issues might get their shackles up if I have wrongly interpreted the spirit of the law, but bear in mind: of the eight quilters who worked on this project, only one is American. One is Swiss and six are German. Seven sections of the quilt were created in Germany and one was created in Switzerland. Nothing was actually created in America. Juan Gris was Spanish, and I presume the original painting resides in Spain. So even if I had a deep knowledge of American copyright law, there’s a good chance it wouldn’t apply word for word to this project. I’m just saying all this based on topics in the online discussions I’ve been listening in to. We intend no offense — just the opposite — we are indebted to Juan Gris for creating a beautiful painting that has inspired us to push our artistic skills as far as we can, and that brought us together for some good, creative camaraderie.

After Festival is over, we will pass the quilt around the group so everyone can enjoy it, and then eventually donate it to a charitable cause. I’m happy to be able to share our quilt with a wider audience as well through it’s display in Birmingham. Maybe others will be inspired to embark on interesting group projects too.

Saturday was a gorgeous, sunny day so we went downtown to run errands.

This is the Heidelberg “Hauptstrasse,” or High Street. It’s foot traffic only and lined with restaurants, bars, cafes, bakeries, shops, movie theaters (2) and department stores. Mixed in along the side streets are the University buildings and above it all are apartments of all types.

Although it’s packed with tourists, it’s still a wonderful, lively place filled with students and other locals as well. If we didn’t have kids (and wanted/needed a bit of open garden or playground) I think it would be great fun to live down here.

We bought some summer pants for K, cotton yarn for me, ice cream for all, and then stopped in at our favorite gallery for a new opening.

The current exhibition is paper cut illustrations by Gémeo Luis. Marcus has done a wonderful job mounting these works under glass so that the play of shadows on the wall adds to the swirling movement of the fanciful artwork.

I’ve long been a fan of Scherenschnitte, and this is a wonderful, modern interpretation.

As an aside, it seems to be forming a critical mass in my conscious as well. Traditional Scherenschnitte (go ahead and google it, there’s too many examples for me to choose just one) is the epitome of German to me. Now that we’re moving to Hawai’i, I’m seeing a connection between the European paper cutting and the island quilting style. Add to that the influence of modern and whimsical interpretations such as Gémeo Luis’ work, or what Sara Lechner has now on her blog, and my head is swimming with ideas! My pixie of a daughter would like a meadow theme in her new bedroom and wouldn’t a quilt with a hawaiian style center motif, but with mushrooms and flowers, surrounded by a silhouette border of faeries, grasses, and flowers, all in just two or three juicy colors be fantastic?!

Oh, and speaking of bright and hawaiian, we bought sunglasses while we were downtown too:

We’re traveling exclusively by foot or streetcar now as my car is on a ship somewhere in the Atlantic. Not that it makes a difference — I’ve always preferred to go downtown with the streetcar. It’s clean and comfortable and there’s no worries about parking.

My next 12 x 12 piece seems to have been much better in my head than on fabric.

I’ve been struggling with this one from the beginning because of the constraints of working during a move from one hemisphere to the other. I’ve tried to stick with ideas that could be made with limited fabrics and tools. Through a focused shopping trip, rental tools and time at the Arts & Crafts Center, and a borrowed sewing machine, I’ve actually nearly finished this challenge.

But now I’m not happy with it. At first I thought it was just because of the uneven stitching, but the more I look at it the more I realize that its the whole thing. Instead of trying to fix this one, I’ve decided to do it over. Same idea, just a do-over. That’s often the problem with trying a new technique. You’re not very good at it. So, as long as I’m still within our time-frame for the project, I figure I can do this again until I get it right — or at least closer.*
I’m on a bit of a break right now though as the sewing machine had to be given back for a week.
Worst case scenario, I’ll try my other completely different idea, but it’s possible that that one is better in my head as well.

* We’ve been talking off line about “do-overs” and while we’ve all got our most- and least-favorite quilts, and would love to go back and revisit some, we agree that would run counter to the idea of completing each challenge within the alloted time period and to treat them as a cumulative learning experience.

I knew that bees really liked our lavender bushes, but I noticed today that there were no less than three varieties feasting on the perfumed plants in our little yard.

This little guy above looked pretty generic to me.

This one could have been the same, but I thought he looked a little more yellow.

My favorites have always been these big, fuzzy, yellow, black and white bumble bees.

And this one with the rusty colored back has got my interest piqued. Katja and her class recently built terra cotta pot homes for Rote Mauer Biene who are solitary, stingless bees. Could this be one?

We’re in the market for a new camera and I can see that a macro lens could be a nice feature. I also notice that these close-ups of the lavender make our yard look rather like it could be on a French estate. Ha! In reality, it’s only about the size of a two car garage (minus the footprint of one car). It’s nice to pretend though, and I like brushing up against the bush and releasing it’s fragrance as I take out the trash.

Last weekend, the kids and I used our last few days with our car to make one last visit with friends we’ve known nearly our whole time here. Needless to say, we had a great weekend. It never ceases to amaze me how great their daughter and my kids all get along despite the fact that they play together only once or twice a year.

Being Nürnberg, our priorities were the zoo (Tiergarten), and Playmobil Fun Park…

Where the girls spent a whole lot of time with the horses again…

and Zavi milked a cow.

He scaled castle walls as well:

I love how Playmobil Park is really just a great big playground. Everything is kid-powered and encourages exploration.

We’d been to the Tiergarten before as well, but it’s a really nice one and we really couldn’t go to Nürnberg without seeing their adorable new sensation, Flocke:

OK, she’s just a baby polar bear who’s mama rejected her and must now be raised by humans, but she’s really cute. Berlin has Knut, and now Nürnberg has Flocke. We waited in the hot sun to see her, and I can’t say it was really worth it, but we had to do it anyway.

When we left our friends to return home, they gifted us the entire Ritterburg (knight’s castle) that my kids play with every time they visit (although the walls are a bit small to climb up). We’ll have to mail it to Hawai’i, but it’s totally worth it and now the kids have something to play with until we fly. THANKS!

As has been typical here lately, on the drive home we saw lots of cars with German flags in anticipation of Germany playing in the European Cup semifinals. My favorite was this “only in the former eastern block” Trabbie filled with fans and flying the colors.

By the way, Germany beat Turkey and will play Spain for the title on Sunday!

I started this one here after dyeing a comforter cover (think european-hotel white damask — they take dye fabulously) a particularly nice orange that derailed three other projects to bring one of Zavi’s drawings to life. I had also just come into possession of some interesting black/grey/white prints from Friday morning K’s sister and that just solidified the need to make this.

I pieced the top right away and then used the opaque projector at the Arts and Crafts shop on post to project the racetrack onto it. I traced the track with one of those blue wash-away markers and I was afraid if I left it too long it would never wash out so I jumped right into the embroidery back in September. Then I washed out the marker and set the project aside.

Since all it needed was the car hand appliquéd and then embroidered, I chose this one as a post-packing project. It went faster than I had expected. The next step is to piece the backing out of more orange — which is with one sewing machine in the crate of things to arrive earlier, and to baste the quilt with batting– which would just make it too bulky to carry with us anyway. So, I’ve mailed the finished top to Hawaii along with two hard drives that TS&WGH decided at the last minute were heavy and overkill (not to worry, he still has the third with him so he’s not without his bits and bytes). Once the “hold us over until the rest of our Stuff arrives” crate with the old sewing machine and the orange fabric arrives, then I hope to finish this for my son’s new room.

Any ideas on how I should quilt it? I’m kind of leaning towards a grid 1/4″ from the seam lines of the checkered flag. I think echoing the racetrack would be too confusing, but maybe echoing the car in the bottom section or adding some sort of action lines might work.

Along with our very important papers and all the clothes and toiletries we can carry, I am supposed to also “hand carry” my valuable jewelry so that teh movers can’t make off with it. Other than my wedding and engagement rings, I really don’t have much in the way of valuable jewelry, but I decided to hand carry some favorites anyway — just in case.

This is case of “good idea, bad execution.” I made it in an afternoon the day before the packers arrived. It would probably be worth doing again some day to get it just right because I do think it turned out very practical.

The main body is a “pre-quilted fabric” (actually a piece of scrap fabric I had been needle-doodling on at the beginning of the year). I added a zippered, quilted. pocket on the left side for watches and stuff, and on top of it, a strip with eyelets that I can attach earrings to, and a fat roll for rings. The right side has loops to hold necklaces and a felt flap to protect them from the contents of the other side.

Because of the bulk quilted fabric adds, I  made satin stitch seams instead of real ones, hence the rough green edges on everything, and the only zippers I had were invisible ones — which, combined with the bulk of the seam allowance makes it rather hard to zip up the case.

If I were to do this again, I’d use wider zippers to accommodate the bulky seams, and take more care in the construction of the case.  As far as functionality goes though, I am very pleased with this last minute creation.

…to this:

Yup, it’s kinda empty here. This is not an interior design or lifestyle blog, so I don’t think I’ve ever shown what our living room looked like. Imagine that it probably looked a lot like your own living room — complete with rumply couch, lots of books, homework and projects strewn about, favorite pictures on the wall, a mix of “real” and IKEA furniture, etc.

This is the current decor of borrowed furniture and moving boxes:

And do you know what? It’s not so bad. There’s still homework and projects strewn about, I miss a few of the favorite pictures on the wall and the couch could be a little more stylish, but it’s got me wondering (not for the first time) “why do we have so much stuff?”

I know a good part of the answer is that we are sentimental. I like thinking of my grandparents when I serve dessert out of their dishes, or the generosity of my uncle when I sit at his desk, or the treasures we’ve seen in Europe when I eat at the antique table we purchased here or look at the photos and paintings on the wall of places we’ve visited. We are also people who do things — and they all utilize “stuff;” like my hubby’s love of tinkering with geeky gadgets, my quiltmaking, the kids’ dess-up or Legos, all of our bikes, and on and on. Every time we move I am faced with possessions that take up space, but that we actually do use and enjoy.

My answer in the past has usually been to just get more organized, but organization is a double edged sword. It just allows us to get more stuff. All the DIY storage projects and closet organizing and container stores are an industry that enables us to live more comfortably with our stuff, but doesn’t address the fact that we wouldn’t need such big houses with so much storage if we just didn’t have so much stuff. (This reminds me how much I love George Carlin and his bit about “stuff.”)

My plan this time around is to be very mindful of what I incorporate into our next home and to have only as many storage devices as are aesthetically and functionally pleasing and when they are full to stop. I hope to be able to purge a reasonable amount of stuff, but I must admit that the administrative job of eBay- or Craig’s List-ing stuff intimidates me. This is my Grand Plan though. Wish me luck.

Saturday was World Wide Knit in Public Day. I went to my LYS, Anette’s, and sat in the display window for a few hours, doing my part.

I had finished up my non-packed yarn on the dish cloths and then sent off my needles, so I needed to buy new supplies. I opted for cheap bamboo needles that I can take on the plane with me. If they get confiscated I won’t shed any tears. Anette is a wool fanatic so I couldn’t possibly knit with cotton in her shop unless I smuggled it in. That’s OK, because when I explained my project parameters (must work with my cheap needles, be easy to stop and start, require a minimum of skeins, and fit within my skill-set), Friday morning friend R suggested the felted pot holders from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. Anette jumped up and grabbed the book off the shelf — I was obviously in the right place!

I’m pleased with the reults and I think I have enough wool for a few more on the plane. that is if my daughter doesn’t use all the yarn up making finger crocheted strings — her new obsession.

I’m pleased with the day as a whole. I chose to walk to Anette’s even though it’s probably two miles (perfect for a bike ride, but the bikes are packed). On the way, I ran into my son’s best friend’s mom. We walked part of the way together as she was off to the family garden plot. We had a comfortable chat. Once at Anette’s I met R from the Friday morning quilting/breakfast group and her two daughters. It’s always nice to spend more time with any of the Friday ladies (I had just missed U, also of the group). After they left, my neighbor E arrived with her daughter. Her daughter and my son have been in the same class since we arrived here four years ago, so we are good friends and enjoy hanging out together. She was kind enough to drive me home afterward and I had her drop me off at a friend of my daughter’s house in our same village so I could pick up Katja from the birthday party there. The party was going well, so everyone was staying longer. Instead of going home, I was invited to stay the extra hour. Mom S and I always have fascinating conversations about our various cultures and languages.

I finally came home so full of friendship and rich experiences that I was actually a bit melancholy about the prospect of leaving it all. I have met so many interesting people here from so many different backgrounds — many of which I could never have even imagined beforehand. I will miss the camaraderie that forms even between the parents when the kids stay in the same school group for multiple years. I will miss walking down the street and at least recognizing my fellow villagers if not running into friends. Saturday was not a unique day: Friday was cake and coffee with E and M and our kids who are all classmates, Sunday was an excursion with E. It happens all the time and I will miss it all the more because of that.

This is probably old news, but I belong to a group of twelve artists who periodically challenge each other to create 12-inch square quilted artworks on a theme. We hope to inspire and encourage each other and hopefully grow in the process. This time around the challenge is “Illumination.”

I already blogged on the other site about one idea, but I mentioned that I had another.

I (almost) always ask myself what my message has to do with quilts. I mean, if I wanted to paint portraits or landscapes, I’d probably do that on paper or stretched canvas. If I’m going to use the quilt as an artistic medium, then I want to incorporate “quilty” elements or themes and do it for a reason. So, what about illumination can I relate to quilts?

Reading under the blankets at night!!

So here’s a drawing I made from about three photos of my son. (I then messed around with it in photoshop to simplify some of the details.) I have in mind applique in the graphic style of Michael Schwab. Here’s the kicker though: I’m thinking of making a small quilt (in a Sunshine and Shadows pattern, get it?) and putting it over the top of this, attached just at the top so that you lift the quilt to see the boy reading underneath the covers.

I’m a bit worried that this is too gimmicky, so I’m throwing it out to the general public. I don’t promise I’ll take anyone’s advice, but I’ll definitely listen to input.