Heading for Veldhoven

Having been to markets with my fabrics several times now I thought I had developed a certain routine. I felt safe, because, after all, I know what to do! Feeling safe is dangerous, though. Especially if you leave too many things until the last minute. This includes buying new (light) tables for my stall, which the supporting quilter wanted to have a say in, but he was away on Monday, so it had to be done on Tuesday. It also includes wrapping 58 new colours onto cardboards for presentation, which my expert wrapping assistant Hildegard could only do on Tuesday. 

And then I realized that some of my boxes which had been bought for transport of fabrics had been taking on lives of their own and needed to be emptied... And many other things, which I won’t go into exact detail about.

But I made it.  

The new tables changed my packing of the car, but fit in well. 

The huge storm during the night was ‘over’ in that there were only many rain showers on the way, gusty winds to deal with (I could now point to several suitable locations for wind mills along the German autobahn!). 

I left 45 minutes later than I had planned, caught the morning traffic jam and a following extensive detour right at the beginning of my trip, and then there was one road construction site following the other. And then I had not realized how difficult a city like Cologne could be to get around – on the right number of autobahn I mean.

After 760 kms, exactly one hour before the closing of the halls for the night I arrived at the venue, and managed to set up my tables and the wooden holders for the fabrics.

Fine tuning will have to be done tomorrow, between eight and ten. I am pretty sure I will sleep safe and sound tonight!

My stall is no. 23 – if you find me here during the next four days, and tell me how many kilometres I drove to get here, you will get any fabrics you buy for the pre-Oct.-15^th-price of €19/m! Looking forward to seeing you here in Veldhoven.

When I’m old I am going to wear purple...

I remember that saying from way back then during the heyday of the feminist movement, which really puzzled me, because at that point - I must have been in my mid-twenties - I wasn't quite sure when 'old' would start.  I'm still not sure about that today, but that's a different story. In any case, this saying certainly came to my mind today when I received two orders for packages from the May 2014 Collection for my fabric club. Which had been a combination of six shades of purple.

Fabric Club Collection May 2014

My usual procedure is that I dye a certain amount of metres in every color – usually 4 or 5 lengths of fabric, depending on whether it is a month including the ‘light’ subscribers or not. One of the lengths I put on a bolt to include it in my overall selection, the others get cut up into fat quarters and half metres. A certain number of these has already been sold when they are being cut, according to the number of subscriptions. The remaining packages are the additional packages of the collection, for sale either via the website, or on offer when I go to a market. Thus, depending on the always slightly changing number of subscribers, the number of surplus packages available may vary, but I usually try to have around eight packages of Fat Quarters to begin with. These may be gone quickly, or they may linger a bit – for example, I still have a few packages from November 2013. 

Although that does not necessarily mean this was a particularly unpopular combination, in fact, in that case I had an unusually large number of surplus packages, if I remember correctly, there were 12 or so. In any case, after a certain time, the surplus packages are all gone.

Because I went to market in Karlsruhe with my fabrics for the first time this year, which was scheduled around the twentieth of the month, I had finished dyeing the May collection before I left and took the surplus packages with me to sell at the stand. 

Looking down on a segment of my fabric selection
as it appears at the stand

The regular packages had been packed, too, and were shipped to the subscribing customers after I returned, toward the end of the month. Which is my usual approximate date of shipment.

When I returned from Karlsruhe, all the surplus packages had already been sold – that was the first time my selection was sold out before it had been shipped!

I have to admit that I was surprised by this success, as I myself am not that much a fan of purple. In fact, I had only decided on this combination after Frauke had made a remark that she thought there wasn’t enough purple in my overall selection, which came at a time when I was just beginning to make plans for May. Because I knew I wasn’t going to have enough fabric left over to do purples after finishing a full collection, I put off my original plans for May until July and did purples. Several times have I been asked whether there were still packages of May available, although the website has been marked ‘sold out’. And now today’s double enquiry... which leaves me wondering - perhaps I should do a collection in-between? Not another purple for the subscribers, because, after all, they may feel similarly about purple like I do, and I wouldn’t want to tax their patience by inflicting another six shades of purple on them so soon after May. But perhaps as a special edition on the occasion of my first appearance with my fabrics at the OEQC festival in October in Veldhoven? I think I will decide that after the next market in Erding, in two weeks. 

A severe case of procrastination...

was ended today. On Monday I had finished the quilt I want to enter in the Wide Horizons IV, and already that one had been put off repeatedly. It could have been finished earlier... I then quickly put a finish around a small cut-off which serves perfectly as a contribution for an exhibition in celebration of 20 years of 'quiltstar' in Freiburg, under the title "19 + 1" (of the twenty years of the shop, 19 were under the ownership of Monika Schiwy-Jessen, and during the last year it has been under the ownership of Sophie Maechler). I won't show it in total here yet, as the show is on in the fall, but it has 19 mother of pearl buttons on it:

auditioning buttons - in the end I took one size smaller

After I finished zigzagging around this little feller, the lower tension was completely gone, and no extended cleaning attempts from my side could get it back. A trip to the dealer - which meant two days withouth the machine when I had really wanted to get started on stitching my entry for the Carrefour. I felt completely amputated, did a little bit of dyeing and started yet another attempt at cleaning up that work table in my studio, forever cluttered.
Finally, knowing that I won't get much work done over the weekend because of family festivities, this morning I sat down and started stitching:

Of course once I'm at it I don't understand why I kept putting it off. The first three lines are finished - out of approx. 16 or 17. Still a little bit to go, but at least I'm on my way.
At the same time I would have liked to be in at least three different places - the German Guild's Annual Meeting in Einbeck, including the opening of Tradition bis Moderne, in which I have a quilt for the first time, at the OEQC in Veldhoven, Netherlands, and in Washington D.C. for the SAQA Conference, neither of which I have ever been to. Just as well that we are celebrating various family birthdays and I didn't have to make up my mind which of the three I would have preferred over the other two!