Brambles

Been in amongst the brambles again today. Finally bashed and hacked my way through to the bottom end.
Tonight I'll be working in the studio. There is an Art Market coming up soon!
Oh, and I have to upload some new stuff to my Etsy shop. Today I have been showing off my top items at the Etsy Showcase "Gift Guides".

Don't forget: It's Mothers's Day soon!! [not here in England though]

Possible Garden

Underneath these brambles lies a garden. Maybe.



A few hours later. The most wonderful surprise: There are little dry stone walls!!
When I saw the place we could maybe, possibly, turn into a garden, I said I would love to have dry sone walls on the side, to seperate the garden bit from the grassy bit. At that time you could see nothing but brambles, and I did not know that they were already there. So happy.

The puppies arrived!!

The puppies, I mentioned earlier, finally arrived:



Bastian, my little brother, and his girlfriend Annina seem to be abuzz! Congratulations on a good start in the breeding business.

More images and info on their website.

Gardening and textile flowers

I did some indoor gardening yesterday. I put flower seeds in big old terracotta pots. Everything grows like crazy here at the studio, because of the fantastic amount of light and heat - and my green fingers.



And then I did some more work on the textile flowers. Soon my corsages will be available as clips, hair ties or headbands.





This is my niece Sonja, wearing one of my corsages as hair clip. We had a really good photoshoot recently and I am very thrilled with the pictures.

An afternoon in the sun

Sunday was the most gorgeous sunny day.  I was working in my studio until John, who was helping our friend slating a roof, had the wonderful idea to pick me up so I could lie in the garden in the sun, while he was working on the roof.



It was a lovely afternoon. Amazing clear blue sky - not even a single cloud. Birds singing in the trees, bumblebees and butterflies passing by. Children playing on the lawn. Then a delicious meal with our friends and a little too much white wine.



Chilli cous cous with butternut squash and roasted sweet potato.
I have to get this receipe.

Blogger Quilt Festival - My Favourite Quilt

Just came cross The Blogger Quilt Festival. I think this is a nice idea, read more about it by clicking on the icon below.



So here is my entry for The Blogger Quilt Festival:



nimmermehr quilt "palimpsest"

200 mm x 260 mm
silk, yarn, wadding, ink

I made this quilt in 2008 and there were many things going on at once. It was an experimental piece, I used different techniques and was very pleased with the way it finally came all together. The quilt was part of my Diploma work and it is in fact part of a series.


detail

The main theme was vulnerability. The poem on the right is taken from Goethe's Faust - it is one of the most beautiful poems I know. Gretchen, a young girl, is describing how she feels, when she realizes that she has fallen in love and given her heart away.
I did digital printing on silk, by using my ink jet printer. The poem was actually a scan of a old book page and this is the reason for calling it palimpsest as other words shine through. The image on the left is a scan of an old medical book that used to belong to my great grandmother, who was a midwife.



I used to do life drawing and transfered one of my drawings onto the fabric by using an ordinary sewing machine to embroider the figure.

While I stiched pieces of fabric together things started to make sense, and I can still see all the thoughts and work that went into it.

Thanks for reading - feel free to leave a comment.

You can see more of my work on my website.

Blog entry about the Quilting workshop in Kosovo here.

Puppies

My brother Bastian and his girlfriend Annina are breeding dogs. Black Russian Terriers to be precise. Recently they posted an image of their dog's first litter on their website.



The image was a bit confusing and it took me a while before I could make out what was going on. But then I saw the puppies:

Bogenschießen

I was less successful in this event, but I loved having a go at it nonetheless.
More images of the Scotland trip here.

Tontaubenschießen

I tried this in Scotland last year and it was great fun.

Faulty Optic

A guy (who was not part of the instalation) talking about the latest show of Faulty Optic. He seems to be thrilled, and so was I when I saw the work in progess at Liz's studio.