For Galskapen heng i det grøne, og Eplet er raudt utan synd

When the challenge came, I thought this was just my thing. I love letters and writing, and often try to incorporate it in my work. So I looked through my sketchbooks for inspiration, and at once found my quote. It is from a poem by the Norwegian author Jon Fosse and in Norwegian it goes: "For galskapen heng i det grøne, og eplet er raudt utan synd". Translated to English it says something like: "For the madness is hanging in the green, and the apple is red without sinn". I had already a rough idea of how to interpret it, and for a long time, I had wanted to try to embroider lettering in the style of Lorina Bulwer. I had found somewhere on the internet a tutorial of how tom make letters like hers easy, and decided to use it this time.

What colours to use were easy to pick, I needle-turn appliqued  the apple, machine quilted the piece simple with free straight lines before I embroidered the lettering and finished it all with some simple hand-stitches. And framed it all with the colour of the apple.

Because the quote is Norwegian, as my native language is, I decided to keep both the text in the quilt and the title in Norwegian.

and a close up:

By Hand

For this quilt I wanted to express the way we use letters to build words, then thoughts and ideas.

When we create there are always imperfections due to the very nature of making something by hand, but there is also beauty and individuality caught in those  imperfections. Using the stamps and stencils symbolises the joy of spreading those ideas to others in the form of the written word  and show the hand of the maker, or letter writer. The hand stitching and embroidery represents for me the art of the letter writer making marks to convey their thoughts, dreams and desires to others and the colours and beads capture the richness of illuminated manuscripts especially the Book of Kells which I had the pleasure of seeing several years ago.

The printed word brings news, stories, learning to our lives and has done for many years from those very first printing presses to todays computer aided machines. To capture some of that history and create my own letters I used hand cut stencils, old printing press letters and textile ink. There materials used hand dyed fabric, embroidery thread and seed beads.

Backside Mystery

Gabriele Bach - Backside Mystery

This challenge remembered me of a visit of a quilt exhibition many years ago. I just had begun quilting, the quilts shown were very modern from the leading quiltartists in Germany. At that time I didn't like it. One quilt was the backside of a quilt, not what you think, no, it was the bottom side of the bed, where quilts normally lie. It showed springs, dust, dirt and forgotten cloths. I never forgot it and today I think the artist did a good job.
Normally my quilts are neat and proper. You won't see seam allowances,  loose threadends or knots. But of course it gives them, hidden under the surface of the top.

So I decided to turn around a quilttop and show what is underneath. I used a piece of self dyed fabric, cut it, rearranged and sewed it. After ironing it looked like this.
I like this fabric very much and saved it for a long time. For this piece I could use it, because nothing is wasted, you can even see the seam allowances.

Backside Mystery - detail

When I backed it with batting and a backside. I embroidered it with white and red, self dyed yarn. I used the running stitch, because it looks equal on both sides.






For me this piece was hard work, because I must prevent me every minute from cutting the loose thread ends. I needed a lot of tries till I began every embroidery line with the knot on the top.

Crocus - Love for the Garden in Spring

Gabriele Bach: Krokus - Liebe zum Fruehlingsgarten

Love is a very difficult theme and I spent a lot of time thinking about it. But when I saw my little garden in the sunshine, it was clear for me, what I wanted to show in my quilt. I love my garden, especially in the early spring when it is full of crocuses and snowdrops. The crocus is a wild sort and they become every year more.

For my quilt I had the idea to show the flower with a wide border. I admire often the hand embroidery in other quilts and this time I wanted to use seed stitch to present the wealth of crocus blossoms in my garden. I have self- dyed embroidery yarn, which waits to be used.

Every year again I admire the crocuses in my garden and I am very happy that I made at least a quilt with the crocuses.

I used mostly self-dyed cotton and embroidery yarn, pieced and quilted with the machine and made the embroidery by hand.

The Lost Garden

I had to go far back to find my memory, from my early childhood. We had a cabin back then, out of the city, with a garden full of flowers and berry-bushes, which my grandmother planted in the 1930s. There also were a lake near by, where we used to go bathing with our row-boat. @I decided to go abstract, seeing the flowers in the front, and an overview with lake and forrest in the background, as if seen from above.
Mono-printed and painted calico, machine-quilted and hand-embroidered.
And some close-ups:

Greta