a little retro inspiration

one day at the flea market, i snatched up these two embroidery books from the seventies for a song. it was that day that i got a discount on the discount. both books are done by an embroidery artist named lis paludan. here's a link to someone who did a bit more research on her than i did. she's a danish woman who taught handicrafts for years and apparently is very well-known for her crochet books as well.  although these books are quite dated and in many ways really, really seventies (to the point where i feel i should listen to ABBA when i look at them), they have a timelessness as well in the simple, almost childlike motifs and bright colors.

i can easily see doing an updated version of these borders

a little tweaking of colors and these flowers would be very noughties.

i love that little owl.

i love this idea of appliquing children's drawings to cloth.

and the anatomical correctness of those three in the middle - very seventies.

sabin did some super cool flower people as a little girl, i think we'll try it with those.

and this row of houses is just so charming.

i think sometimes we look at previous decades and think we can't go there (for me, it's the 80s), but by taking bits and pieces and updating for right now, i think these books were definitely worth the 40 kroner i spent on them.

a moment of perfect clarity

sometimes, you find yourself in heaven a used bookstore and you find the most marvelous and unexpected thing. something you didn't even know existed, but when you saw it and paged through it, it made your molecules hum in perfect alignment and you knew that you had to have it. and you thanked your lucky stars that someone saw fit to sell off a woman named birgitta schøning's fabulous collection of embroidery and quilting books. and you wish, just for a moment, that you had had the chance to know her or at the very least to see what she made with the inspiration she found. and you wonder if the inspiration you'll find there will echo hers or continue hers or somehow carry along the line that extends clear into the book. and you sigh. and you are happy. and oddly you realize you have no problem reading swedish.

this is a precursor to elizabeth's marvelous soul food project
(don't worry, i've already scanned and sent it to her.)

close-ups of the above quilt

this is also loaded with embroidered words and clearly dense with meaning

i wondered aloud once whether memory can be preserved in cloth.

and now i believe it can.

more amazing embroidery

and the quilts in this book. so much inspiration. which i'll save for another day.

sometimes you find a treasure when you least expect it.

and when you most need it.