Lynn Cohen's "Other Place"

My last quilt was "Barcelona" and I showed my passing through Barcelona on my way to Israel. So the obvious "Other Place" for me was to follow up with a quilt depicting my five years living in Israel from 1961 - 1966. I was a young woman of 20 when I arrived there; I went for five weeks, which turned into five years. I met my husband to be at the second Kibbutz I stayed at. We married four months later. It seemed much longer. I learned to live the very quiet small farm collective life and was happy there for two years. We got pregnant on a visit home to California, returned and gave birth in Israel. Things got difficult when I had to leave my baby in the "Baby House" and have him raised mostly by women whose job it was to work there, while I worked elsewhere on the Kibbutz. The babies and children slept in their house, not their parents house at night. This did not work for me at all. When my son turned 18 months I took a vacation with him to California. I decided not to go back; and my husband followed a few months later.
That's the story behind the quilt. I will give it to my son this month for Chanukah, as a memento of his first year in Israel. His homeland.

The quilt is built of papers I either copied from materials I had at home; or letters and other written materials I asked for and got from an Israeli woman artist I met on line. It's all in Hebrew of course, printed and hand written. Israeli stamps were a gift from her as well, along with the bus tickets and zip code stamps, letters and envelopes. I cut out an outline of an map of Israel and drew it on the back of a brown paper grocery bag.
I collaged my papers (including photos on paper) onto the bag with glue. I sandwiched it with batting and backing fabric (blue and white: the colors of the Israeli flag); with the machine I sewed it in crazy quilt style. Then I hand sewed wool yarn in a blanket stitch around the outside of the map. I added turquoise beads I got for $1 at Michael's. It's my first paper quilt; and first map shaped quilt too.

The whole map of the state of Israel.

The top of the map shows my arrival date in Israel. And what I looked like when I first arrived.

The middle of the map shows where we lived and where I married and gave birth.

It also shows me pregnant.

The last photo shows my then husband holding our baby son

not long before I brought him/them to California in '66.

I hope you enjoyed traveling back to me to this "Other Place"!

Another time another place

A couple of weeks ago I went to an exhibition in a museum in The Hague. It was about Paris, city of modern art in1900-1960. Back then, when you were an artist, Paris was the place to be.
So my another place is Paris, where art changed and became more abstract.
The picture of the eiffeltower (1926) made by Robert Delaunay was resized on the computer before a copy was made. Then the copy was crumbled to make the paper more soft. Then it was ironed onto vlieseline.
So putting in paper was easy... My new technique was using plastic, and honestly: I dont think it was a great idea. Then machinequilting, and I added some paint. I am not totally done with it, but running out of time.
Best wishes for the new year to all of you!

.

Nazca Lines- Peru

The Nazca Lines can be found 400km south of Lima, along the Peruvian coastline. I flew over them in 2005. "Stretching across 500 square kilometers, the lines were etched by the Nazca people using the simple technique of digging shallow ditches and piling the earth along the edges to a height of 30cm. Many of these lines stretched for hundreds of metres, creating a spectacular collection of figures featuring more than 13,000 lines representing 18 birds as well as figures like the dog, the iguana lizard, the spider, the killer whale, the shark, the monkey and others, some of them hundreds of metres long"
Modern researchers think this was done over a period of 800 years from 370BC.
No-one knows for sure what the drawings and lines mean but some theories are that they are messages to other worlds, sacred roads or precise astronomical maps. You can read more about the fascinating Nazca lines here...http://www.world-mysteries.com/mpl_1.htm or here.....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Lines

Due to the fact my piece is brown with brown stitching, it doesn't photograph well.
The new (to me) technique I used is couching. I couched thread and a strip of plastic cut from a bag, the heavier line on the quilt which represents the Pan American Highway which passes through the Nazca Lines. Straight lines were done using various stitches. One of the figures, called The Hands, I free motion quilted. In real life The Hands is 45m long, one hand having 5 fingers, the other 4. The spiral too is free motion quilted. It is thought that the many spirals mark out where the ancient Nazca people built underground canals to irrigate the desert.
The paper I chose is an old dressmaking pattern, the lines on it precise and straight like the Nasca Lines and just the right colour. The paper was torn in pieces and adhered with gel medium (a plastic like glue). I did intend to do more stitching on top but my machine didn't like it, guess I need a teflon foot. I do like the crinkly textured effect that the tissue paper and gel medium gives and plan to do another Nazca Lines piece, next time doing more stitching before adding the paper and using a darker thread.
If you get a chance to go to South America, don't miss seeing the Nazca Lines.

another stampquilt

My contribution to Another place.

I recycled all the stamps I received this last year.

They are treated gel medium so they are sewable ( new english word?) and netted with tule and then they are stitched in place.

Most stamps are from places I've never been, but a lot are from places I once visited and bring back lovely memories.

Have a great, inspiring new year with lots of time for your creativity, Simone.

Another place

I haven't struggled with any of the previous challenges as much as with this one!
Another place... use paper... use plastic... use a new technique... pfff!
I thought and thought and was about to give up when, 2 days before we left on a 2 week holiday on Dec 24, I had an idea. I had about 1 hour to create my quilt, so it became a very small, postcard-sized piece.

Another place... is Tasmania - I have never been there yet, but would love to go. It's part of Australia, but it's literally a-part from Australia, and my idea is that it is quite different... I hope to be able to see it for myself soon!

The paper - is from an old atlas;
The new technique - is using paper in a quilt ;-) (yes, I'm cheating, I know)
The plastic - is absent, as I could not think of what to use...

I do like my little Tassie piece!

Another Place

Top left hand corner showing some quilted script- new for me.

Another Place, all made with homespuns. I pieced the centre then appliqued three sides of the green bucket on. The bucket is throwing out an assortment of junk including a mesh, beer bottle tops, plastic rings etc. It is simply quilted with the message written in the yellow border. I have never made a quilt with homespuns or tried to write anything on a quilt before.

I am fairly happy with it.

... another place ... coral reef

I paper pieced this block together - hadn't used this method before (or again).



And then laid decorative wool over the top, it didn't seem enough, so I sandwiched the wool between two layers of tulle, and quilted a swirling ocean; and then attached this over the top of the block.

If you look really hard, there is a pod of plastic whales in the background.

I am quite happy with my interpretation of ... another place ... coral reef.

Another Place - The Orient

The last three months of this year have been very busy for us, three family weddings, one of them our eldest daughter. It has not left a lot of time for stitching or pursuing our own interests.


I have cheated a little with this challenge, I also used it in another group challenge titled 'The Orient.' Combining both challenges was the only way I could complete them both on time.


Using both paper and plastic had me thinking and I wasn't sure how to incorporate both into this project. The silver moon is made from recycled plastic coated card.

Do you take sugar in your tea?

This is my quilt for another place. Drinking tea is very relaxing, it really takes you to 'another place'. Instead of using some paper, it is made entirely with paper, namely used tea bag envelopes. It also has some cording and a little plastic. It is not particularly clear on the picture, but it has a cup of tea and a teapot on it.

Another place- Jane

another place

strips cut and ready to weave

woven and ready to cut into more strips

I saw an article on a technique in Cloth Paper Scissors about layering with "Contact" sticky clear film. I tried this with some printed maps, a layout of our favourite camp ground, fabric and a sheet of scrabble scores, but the end result was a bit bland, so I cut it up, then found the sheet of printed stone soup I did for our group project, cut that so I could weave the laminated strips through, layered with mnore contact to hold it all together, it did need to be heldtogether somehow! then cut that into strips. As it is Christmas I used some lovely red spotty fabric we had made a dress out of last year, and did a very traditional log cabin design, stitched onto some stabiliser.
The finished piece has names of some places I have been, some favourite spots and some I would like to go to soon - all machine quilted onto the surface.
This is all about keeping touch with your roots but also branching out, the log cabin is a favourite and a starting point for most quilters, and the different technique is a form of travelling to another place.
I left a hole in the middle and put my passport in there for the promise of things to come.

a hint

A hint of things to come, I have actually finished early for a change, and am quite pleased with the result. What fun to try out a new technique, merry christmas to all, hope you are not all stuck in the kitchen on Sunday, but have lots of family and friends to have a great daywith, Jane

I have finally started ...

I am definitely working to a deadline this time around.

Preview

Here it is, a little teaser.

Marian.