Collage Pillow 1, plus "Ieri, Oggi, Domani"

rotations:

Film and fabrics:

This week I watched Vittorio de Sica's film "Ieri, Oggi, Domani"  , a trilogy of short films within a film starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. I was struck by the colors, patterns, and textures in the clothing, architecture, props-- everything so beautifully thought out.  

It's a comprehensive approach that brought to mind the diverse group of fabrics in my collection, which span a wide range of time periods, various family members' personal tastes, functions etc.-- interesting to think of each group of fabrics as a scene, a place, an event.  Some of the fabrics in the collection, such as the green and gray windowpane plaid shirt-- a rag which I recovered from my dad's work shed--  are from around the same time period as the movie, mid-sixties.  

Love the Lipton boxes and other products, the pop of turquoise in the doorway.

Note the occurrence of blue in this series of market scenes.

.. and the geometric patterned dress that strolls through.

LOVE this one-- the linear structure and use of shadow to reinforce it, the texture of the wall at the back, the pop of orange amid grays and beiges.

I was reminded of this painting by Nicolas de Stael .  The monochrome image above emphasizes the lines and spatial composition.  Below is the original painting with all of its glorious colors.

back to the film....

Is that a pile of giant lemons?

You can't miss the yellow in these frames.

So small that red license plate, but what an impact.

and a pop of red again in this one.

Crazy colored cabinets!  Note the blood-red pot with the turquoise bowl back left.

Old clothes and fabric scraps-- a summer spread (in progress) made of linen and cotton

Here's a bedspread I'm working on with a little more than half the pieces sewn together in random blocks.
It's made of old slip covers, old clothes, vintage tea towels... to name just a few. I want it to be fun and beautiful, but it's also important to me that it be durable and washable, not so precious that I can't flop on it to nap or read.  Cargo pants scraps-yes, silks-no.
I didn't start with any plan-- just threw together a color palette I liked and started cutting shapes and sewing strips together.

Trapezoids kept popping out-- Macchu Picchu seems to be buried somewhere in the linen roses.

also thoughts of Richard Diebenkorn's "Ocean Park" paintings .




and Gee's Bend quilts haven't been far from my mind.

I used the strips between the puckered woven stripes of this shirt.

and here's the tea-dyed cotton shower curtain that just keeps giving.

Old cargo pants

and tea towels with a little window-pane pizazz.