(Things are) Moving on

With all the things going on this summer I took a difficult decision late in August and canceled my trip to EPM in Alsace, although I really had been looking forward to it. There were several exhibitions I would have wanted to see, people I would have loved to meet personally, and it was the first time that the EQA exhibition was opening there, even being shown there.  Life then threw another unpleasant thing in my way, and I also had to cancel the workshop I would have taught at my beloved Petersberg. Fortunately, a long-time participant and friend agreed to act as substitute group leader and the workshop took place without me. The group is well established and many of them are so advanced in their patchwork proficiency that they don’t really need me as a ‘teacher’ anymore, and they could easily handle the newcomers. Keeping my fingers crossed that now, finally, things will begin to smooth down and the next time this workshop will be just a weekend as usual without any emergencies and unpleasant surprises or cancellations.

‘On the side’ of all this my husband and I packed up our belongings and house where we had lived for 19 years and 2 months. Our son had already left for Amsterdam in August, and it was our job to sort through too many items and stuff and books and and and… The movers arrived on a Monday and by late Wednesday morning every box and our furniture was on board. A last and final (14^th!) visit to the recycling station after the moving van took off, and then we followed the moving truck, spent a night on mattresses on the floor in the new apartment, before the movers joined us again to unpack on Thursday and Friday. Ever since then we have been working away at boxes. Most, but not all, have by now been unpacked.

 

It took a while before the kettle reappeared and we could make a decent pot of tea. And we were searching for the box with contents of the fridge for several days which somehow had disappeared. When we finally found it – out on the balcony, covered with a plastic sheet to protect it from the rain – the cheese was still edible as it had been a few cool days (although we merely grated it onto a veggie-dish baked in the oven.)

Other things have re-appeared, too.

Project for 20 Perspectives, already way overdue,
and not finished yet.

 

My sewing room is smaller than in the former house, and because the whole apartment is smaller than the house we need to readjust even further.

 First job was to make curtains for my son’s room. Rather idiosyncratic, and certainly not capable of winning a design award, but they do keep the early morning light out when he wants to sleep in a little bit.

And I have put something on my design wall, although it hasn’t progressed far yet.

 

I had a chance to take another look at my Sweater Somewhat Slanted, which keeps changing as it grows. 

 

This time the change was due to the need to re-dedicate the blue handspuns in the bag to enlarge the result of my Tour de Fleece 2024 effort, which had been to spin ‘all my blues’. That ended up with a good amount of 3-plied yarn, but not enough for a complete project. The slanted sweater, however, is so versatile in color placement, it doesn’t really matter what color goes into the remaining length of sleeve 1 and then sleeve 2. 

Still debating how I will fare with the neckline. Not sure yet...

 

And I had the immense joy of meeting up with Kathy (i.e. Kathleen Loomis), who had three hours off the boat on a river cruise in Bamberg, which is now relativle close to where we live. We had a lovely couple of hours in a café, catching up and chatting about what’s been happening in our respective lives. We agreed that it had been too long since we saw each other in person, and that it really was too short a visit, but better than nothing. Hopefully it won’t be quite as long before we get a chance to meet the next time!