Free bookmark pattern - based on an old sampler motif

I have been playing again with some patterns from the old Swedish books that I bought at an antique fare.
Just so that everyone know, I would like to make it clear that I am not using copyrighted material as my own. I know these is a difficult area so I will try to explain how I see this.

First, these books are about 70+ years old, although I am not sure when the copyright would have expired or how. But most of the patterns in them are really patterns that can be found all over Europe. There are patterns that I see again and again on old Hungarian, Ukrainian, German, Austrian, Latvian etc., etc. embroideries, not to mention Quaker an other early American things. It might be because of this that I "feel" they are in the public domain. In Hungary we say folk art is something that wasn't created by one person, but kind of a common creation: we don't know where it comes from originally, and everyone changes it a bit as they use it and share it. So there are endless variations of it.

Secondly, even so I never use these pattern as they are, I wouldn't copy a pattern from a book here and say they are mine. I use them more as inspiration. In this pattern, what I liked was the very simple form of the flowers, and the original red and blue colours. We also have red and blue together in some areas in Hungary. But apart from that, the overall design is my own work: the size of the motif, the layout, the repetitive element, the border etc.

I hope I am expressing myself clearly. If anyone knows for sure that I am in the wrong, please, correct me.

So, after all this, here is the bookmark that I created inspired by some patterns in an old Swedish book, but I wouldn't say they are really Swedish patterns, more like old European sampler motifs. Apart from using the original colour scheme, I also made a more modern, fresher looking one.

Which one do you like more?




Click on the pictures for the pdf.

Swedish folk pattern and some WIP

Hi, dear friends.

I have been really busy lately with my sewing machine and other stuff.
I am learning quilting. Here is my second attempt. (The first one was a simple piece sewn together from 10 x 10 cm squares, not very well - I am still thinking to do something with it.)

I was trying to do a log cabin quilt. I cut lots of 5 cm wide strips and started working. I don't have a real fabric stash, absolutely no quilting fabric, only some odds and ends that I bought in second hand shops or got as donation from colleagues. I tried to pick some light and dark fabrics, and started sewing them together. Here are some pictures of the process, but mostly I was too excited sewing, so I didn't take many photos.







As my blocks grew, I had to realise that my seams are not precise and my cutting was not ver exact either, so some of the lines on the blocks turned out to be a bit wonky. After some thinking I came up with a "brilliant" solution - I will make the blocks so that the log cabins are leaning a bit to the left and right, this way it won't be so visible that they are not perfect. Ha! As if this was a solution - for someone who is a beginner!
I saw some pictures and calculated for myself what size triangles I need for the edges. And I didn't have much fabric that was good with the other colours so had to be careful. Of course, I made mistakes when cutting and sewing again, so at the end it turned out even worse. There were even more seams to match.


In the close-up you can see the not-so-matching seams:




But there are some that are almost OK - purely by accident, though:





Anyway, here is the final result - and in spite of all the mistakes I am VERY happy with it. :D





This is only the quilt top, now I am going to learn how to quilt it. I don't have any batting, need to buy something for the back, too. Until I can do that, I will practice with smaller pieces. It will have to be straight lines quilting, because I also need to buy a free motion foot for the sewing machine and buying all that might take some time.


I have also been knitting a pullover for my daughter. It is almost ready now, I only need to sew in the sleeves. It was made, as most of my knitting, without patterns, just improvising. I knitted the body on the round, and the cowl neck, too. One of the problems with improvising is when you have made one sleeve, it is terribly hard to duplicate it - so I decided to make the second sleeve different. Purely for laziness - but I think it looks really cool. I hope Eszter will like it. It is absolutely soft and warm, it is an alpaca boucle yarn from Drops. Of course, since spring is here, she will need a really warm pullover - NOT. But I didn't manage to finish it in winter, so she will have to wait until next autumn to wear it. :=/







And I also crocheted a little cat for her, to go in the packet when I send the pullover:



This was also made without pattern. Perhaps I should try and write it down?


And here is a small Swedish folk cross stitch pattern for you all to enjoy, I think it is lovely. It was inspired by some old patternbooks I have.

Have fun :)