After too long a time

 I returned to my sewing machine last week.

Because of family reasons I had not been near it for more than six weeks, and felt rather deprived. I had fun at the Patchwork Gilde’s annual event, which took place after my last post.

Susan Vogel and I showing off our certificates for 
presenting exhibitions at the AGM-weekend. Susan 
was responsible for the EQA Round Bobbins (I loved her husband's 
wonderful accompaniment of the event with his didgeridoo 
playing), and I took care of the EQA Contrast Challenge.

 

The Round Bobbins, quite an impressive exhibition in real life!

I did teach a 3-hour workshop on improvisation, which made me 
rather nervous in advance, partly because three hours is just 
too short to get people into an improvising mood. But once I got going, it was fun.

I had knitted a sweater in the meantime, as part of a knit-along, and I finished only a few days after the ‘official’ end date, which is quite astonishing for me as I tend to be not-good-at-all with these x-alongs. With this one, I had chosen a (rather expensive) yarn from my stash with a high linen-component and found quite a lot of tiny fiber pieces in the yarn that made me suspicious whether they would bother me when wearing it, so I spent A LOT! OF! TIME! Picking out those pieces, which, of course, slowed down my process considerably. 

 

I was actually happy with the result, and I had even sort-of-liked the way the instructions were written, at least to me they did not seem quite so clumsy as many other written instructions, and I thought I might knit another sweater after that mode again at a later point in time. 

 

I really liked the combination of the light green and the variegated red...

Unfortunately, because the linen yarn had not been enough and I had supplemented it with a silk yarn from my stash (from India – should have made me suspicious!), which really enhanced the outcome, danger was lurking that I did not suspect. Having been a dyer I should have known… The sweater came out of the first wash completely ruined because the read had run and turned the light green into an unpleasant brown. Home remedies to take out the discoloration exacerbated the catastrophe and I threw the sweater into the bin. That’s a way of de-stashing, too. Threw away the remaining skein of the red yarn as well.

 

The green had lost its lustre completely after the first wash, and things 
got even worse after I tried home-remedies against discoloration.

Upon my arrival at my husband’s place last week I first put the sleeve on my contribution to the EQA-challenge “Insects” that will be shown in Ste. Marie-aux-Mines. Being the one who organizes the transport I am in a fortunate position that I can still finish my piece even after the deadline has passed…

"Picasso Beetle in Yellow", 35x35cm, 2026.

 

Then I picked up the beginnings of my third piece in the Femina series for 20 Perspectives, which would have been ‘due’ on the day of my return. It was completed yesterdaymorning, and you can read a little bit about it here. (I did sleep on it for another night and changed something this morning.) I am not sure whether I am really happy with it, so it is more of a chore finished. Which is a pity as I was happy enough with the first two pieces in the series. But I really struggled with this one, and I feel I have been struggling with my quilting for a while now, so I need to get going with getting my creative juices flowing again.

I have decided to start a piece for the juried EQA exhibition “Desire” for February and concentrate on getting that finished, perhaps this will help get me back on track.