Lineanongrata

extended, extra special, extra secret and extra free

I'm on a roll! Spitting out new patterns left and right. People around me have to duck every ten minutes or so because another applique pattern comes flyin' their way.

Or at least something like that. You get the drift. Basically I'm drowning in tiny bits and pieces of fabric, sifting through words that best describe what I need to say, poking my fingers (and my feet, though that was an undesired side effect of my untidiness) with needles and fighting bias tape. A basket of snakes can't compete with pink bias tape with white polka dots. I swear.

To celebrate these memorable events the free extra pattern deal on all the applique patterns available in the shop will be extended for another three days.

You buy any one of the applique patterns in the shop and you get this little bit of unbearable cuteness above (the pattern is called 'best friends') for free. This pattern will never again be available for sale. Never ever.It's extra special and extra secret. And a whole lot of other superlatives.

Uh... that's it. Publicity ends here.

A very happy summer's week to all of you!

although teasing you was fun...

I shall herewith reveal my secrets.

Not all of them maybe,

after all I do have siblings who could blackmail me,

but some of my professional secrets.

This weekend I have a SouleMama sponsorship interview, and in it I will announce...

Tataaaaa: The launching of a new series of pdf patterns (no shipping, I send them, you print them yourselves) for illustration quilts. They will be in the shop starting this weekend. There will also be special deals on many items in the shop for a couple of days and a chance to win a little something on the SouleMama blog, so do have a look.

This is a sort of a sneak preview.

Because I like you.

secrets

Yes my dears. I'm having secrets.

Things I'm not telling you.

It's a tiny bit like Christmas.

...Only in July.

And just in case you wonder: Not telling you is a lot of fun.

Many a night

Quietly at night, I cut and stitched and cut some more. For weeks in January.

In February I swore when it came to handling 2,50 x 2,50 meters of cotton batting,

I swore when I had to iron 2,50 x 2,50 meters of cotton fabric

and I swore when I had to put about tenthousandthreehundred (estimated) safety pins into a 2,50 x 2,50 meters cotton-batting-cotton sandwich.

Where are the houseelves when you need them?!

But I loved when it all came together. In the first quilt I've ever made for myself.

(It's the wedding quilt from the Purlbee)

the different forms of happiness

It has been a year now that I'm home, and I can see, looking back on this blog's poor history, that it has been a blog-it-easy year for Lineanongrata. I must thank you all for sticking with me. It's a constant pleasure for me, to be able to connect to so many people.

Over the last couple of years, as my life kept changing, I have defined this space very differently at times. It sure is a lot easier to tell a funny story when you basically live with four big burly men who secretly fill each other's backpacks with chestnuts or tape mousetraps on each others cars doorhandles.

It sure was easier to take beautiful photos in the South of France, where there was always sun and light.

This has been a year of many changes for me. I have tried to tell a fancy little story or have an illustration ready for each post I presented here. But it's not working really well, is it? So I'd like to take this space in another direction again, at least partially. I would very much like to show you where I live now, in photos as well as in illustrations, and I would like to share the small things that make my day and eventually my weeks.

It's probably going to be like notes instead of stories. But it should give me the chance to be here more often.

The 'Food for thought' project is taking place more than ever, recipes have started to arrive (and I still owe so many of you a heartfelt thanks for that) and there has been a very important addition to the project, too.

But for tonight, I'd like to share just a few photos of the space and the things I have created around me here in Berlin so far. Making a space a home is more work than I thought.

But as more and more things fall into place, curtains get made, spaces are being defined and routines are being found, I am so very very happy.

Sometimes I pause during my day, look around and see all the things that I have, and the things I can make or draw, and I'm so grateful.

When I walk the streets of Berlin, and be they oh-so-grizzly grey and rainy, I am happy to be here. Sometimes I have to refrain from doing a little two-step in the middle of the subway or on the street somewhere, or in the shopping mall around the corner.

Because I am so happy.

When I run, longer and longer distances, and my body obeys, I am violently, savagely happy to become the athlete I have wanted to be for so long.

But what really makes me giddy with happiness is when I see my friends and part with a 'see you soon', or watch their kids for a night or when I don't see my best friend when I'm at my parent's place, and it doesn't really matter because we'll see each other again, really soon.

...today

Today I wrapped gifts for a friend's very belated birthday...

...Actually so very belated I was almost ashamed to write the 'happy belated birthday' note that accompanied the gift...

...But then I told myself it wasn't altogether as late as the birthday quilt for my best friend.

Which is still not done. And our birthday was in February...

...Today I also realized this is not a good time to make a quilt for myself. Because there is the not-yet-finished quilt aforementioned that we shall never talk about again until it is finished, maybe in December. And everyone around me keeps having babies, so I kind of spit out crib sized quilts every day or so, which, of course, leaves no time for the masterpiece I selfishly envision for myself...or things we don't talk about anymore...

 
...The quilt pattern for this baby blanket is the ZigZag Quilt from the Purl Bee...

...Today I also tried to find the ideal paper for the bookplates I designed... 

Today was one of those days on which one gets nowhere but is always on the way to somewhere.

in the studio

Well, if we wait for me to finish any projects before I post again, it could be Christmas before you hear from me again, so I decided to give you just a couple of tiny glimpses into my studio for the next couple of days.

My list of things to do and things to draw (don't mention the things to sew, please) is seemingly endless, every day I have three new ideas, and on very lucky days I finish maybe one image or one idea.

'Professional list maker' is a job description I have yet to find, unfortunately.

 

Does anyone of you know a charity linked to food? I still have a larger project in mind that will involve illustrations, food and charity, if things go well.

Oh yes, and did I mention this project would need your help, too? I didn't? Well, it will, so stay tuned until I get my act together (Christmas, as I said) and come up with an illustration that will be worthy of a beginning.

 

Until then I have to finish this wedding quilt, which will have to be finished by the end of August, for, you'll be amazed to read, a wedding.

To my sister: Hanna, as you can see, I still have to work on this and can not, not, not, come to the bachelor party with a male stripper, costumes and a night out with girls I don't even know, but who'll want me to drink more than is good for me, be merry when I'll surely feel like crying (the male stripper things is getting to my sensitive protestant nerves already) and will make the bride do even sillier things. There's just no time, don't you see? Please?

wild thing

The last two weeks have been filled with work of the kind I very strongly dislike. Computer-administrative-precise-photoshop-y kind of work. These things absolutely needed to be done, and there are more still waiting for me. In the evenings I very much felt like throwing the computer out the window, an urge I resisted, fortunately.

When it came to the point I felt I would scream if I had to clean up another one of my own messy scans and transform it into a postcard ... on my computer, I did some quilting instead.

The quilt it became makes me smile because it turned out pretty wild. Exactly what I felt like when I pieced and quilted it. Like fire-spitting steam coming out my nostrils while I quilted madly (no pictures available of that, I'm sorry to say), and all the wildness went into the joined fabrics and out of my head.

Wild thing, you make my heart sing... at least in the evenings, when I'm done pretending I'm oh-so-serious and a graphic designer who knows her way around a computer.

cache-misère

'Cache-misère' must be one of my favorite french words. It literally means 'hide-misery' and I probably love it so much because it's a very accurate way to describe how I tidy up things: Put them all into something and then firmly close the door.

If the situation calls for it (too much weight pressing outwards, from inside the doors, for example), barricade said doors.

The downside is that I usually can't find what I'm looking for. On the upside, it's easier to clean when everything is off the floor and shelves.

Also, burglars sneaking in to look for things to steal will immediately conclude that there's nothing there and leave again. No harm done.

In the case of cache-misère shown above, they are handmade from the pattern for CD Holders in this Amy Butler book. The bathroom environment seemed to call for plastified fabric, which makes for rather stable boxes but is a little bit awkward to turn inside-out once you got the lining in place. It actually took quite some strength and even more patience.

Did I ever mention I'm better with strength than with patience? No? Well, here's a tip: Don't use too much strength on this project, or you might rip it apart. A bit. And then you'll have to start all over again.

Well, anyway. Hiding away all the bathroom misery also depends on height. Because if you're tall enough to look down on the boxes, you'll see everything I have hidden in there.

But exaggerated height (like anything above five foot five) has never been one of my problems.

sand-me-downs

(Somebody is being witty here.)

The chairs I have at my new place come from my grandparents. They have the neat advantage of not having cost me a dime, but if one looks at them for a prolonged period of time, one runs the risk of losing ones eyesight. And as much as I loved my mother's parents, I can't keep their chairs in this state just for good old times sake. 

To my dismay, sanding them down is more work than I bargained for, but the change it makes, coupled with a new coat of paint is quite remarkable.

I admit, the chairs are still nowhere near Bauhaus, but they don't bite my rear end each time I sit on one of them, either.