Presence in Quilts only, Life 1.0, and on entering the status of being a Senior Citizen

Life 1.0, as they now call it, has again taken over and silenced my posting.

So many things happening, so much to do, and with the work-life-arrangement that I have now it is a bit more difficult to get to a sewing machine. All my fabrics are down south. And when family obligations (mother, visiting my son in Amsterdam) keep me away from that place, there isn’t much sewing time to be found. 

But visiting Amsterdam was fun and interesting. And annoying. So many tourists (me amongst them, of course). What a beautiful city - I knew that from my first visit approx. 33 years ago - and how terrible for the people who live there to be so flooded with all those tourists.

 

I love my new mug from that city, which my son brought me for my birthday.

Well, I have been knitting, and a sweater is finished. From handspun fiber, spun last year, and the sweater was started this year, so it’s not as if I haven’t done anything.

Trying on the experiment as WIP

 

I have used a trick at the upper end (the sweater is knit top-down,
as is so in vogue right now) that I was really proud of when I started
after having the idea, but it needs a bit of tweaking still, so
I won't say anything about that yet until I have figured it out more thoroughly.

 

I had three quilts hanging in Brno last weekend – the ‘I think I hate this quilt’, which had already been on display at the Glasgow Quilt Show in March, and a small one that I entered in the festival challenge, "A Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose". That one is traveling with the shows collection now.

 

And SAQA's Wide Horizons  exhibition was there, so “Seeing Red” was there, too – again, because I had entered it in the competition there last year. Even though I could not be there in person, at least I was present in quilts. Perhaps next year will offer an opportunity to go there in person again, I hope.

And I have started not only planning

 

but also working on my next contribution to the regular 20 Perspectives challenges. Although a lot of work still needs to be done on this one, and I wonder when I will have time to do just that.

As of this Sunday I have entered the status of being a Senior Citizen. No longer a 5 in the beginning of my age information. A few years ago I had thought I would want to have a special celebration on this occasion, inviting a number of to-me-important-women in my life for a hang-out together in some nice place, making it an all-women gathering. I even set up a special section on my account to which I transferred a regular amount every month. Unfortunately, that financial hideaway had to be raided several times for unexpected expenses and never amounted for enough to even consider any kind of gathering. Add to that the fact that the male two thirds of the family were slightly offended when I once mentioned that I was considering celebrating like that, i.e. not including them in the group. So I celebrated with my son (my husband had to work and could not come), and put off the girls-gathering for a little while, giving the funds a chance to reaccumulate (and telling myself they will not be raided again for anything else). And perhaps I will change the set-up a bit, away from a birthday celebration, so the guys won't be offended at not being included in a birthday celebration, as it won't be one, a few years from now. I will brood about this a little bit more, and we will see what happens.

A full week

 This past week, inbetween jobs, years, with lots of changes coming up, has been a bit emotionally draining. Original plans to do the first commute by train were all worked out, but the German train engine drivers are threatening a major strike, plus we had one day when the local line we live on was completely without service as all their engine drivers were all sick. And I had already been receiving messages from the train people that my original connection wasn't possible, I should check the new suggestion. Two days ago I finally decided that I would go up by car, canceled the tickets, and have been feeling a bit better since then.

I worked on clearing my cutting table and made a lot of progress, even though the result is not completely and entirely satisfying yet.

 

I could stitch a bit, working towards a completion of the piece I want to enter at Brno Festival.

It has progressed so far that I can proceed to deeper layers of my design wall that were hidden.

And I started swatching for a new sweater I have been wanting to knit for about a year now, the Spot Sweater by Anne Ventzel.

But I am not yet allowing myself to take the yarn with me when going north, as there are two other knitting projects that must be finished first. 

Tomorrow I will leave, and it will be an entirely new phase in life.

Merry Christmas!

I would like to wish everybody who is reading this, and, of course, everybody out there in the entire world, a Merry Christmas, whether you celebrate or not. Who is not hoping it will be a more peaceful year ahead of us?

My husband is a fan of candle-driven pyramids, and we have two, both of which are not out and taking his attention to keep them in motion. So besides the choir of angels (barely visible in the background) Christmas decoration is now in full swing. 

As has been the tradition in my family since my son was very young we had our family celebration yesterday evening already, and today is a severe work day for my husband, who is busy with services and all the necessary. A few times I would take my son to the Olympic pool in Munich in the morning of the 24th, keeping us out from my husband's feet when he was busy with all his preparations, especially in years when there was a children's musical to be performed in the afternoon service. This was before my son could participate in that. It used to be really quiet at the pool, and I always enjoyed that outing. Too bad he is too grown up now to come on a trip with me nowadays (but he did write me a very nice letter for Christmas, which touched me deeply.) If I remember correctly, last year I was working, but today being a Sunday that is not necessary, and as I have said before, my next (and last) days of work are Wednesday and after. So I now have time to start preparing dinner that will be served when my husband is finished and we will have our Senegalese guest over, who has been joining us for Christmas dinners for several years now. A little bit of time to reminisce a bit more, though.

Yesterday, as I was scrolling through pictures, I found this very old picture, which must have been scanned from a paper print, from way back then, when our group of exchange students from the Charlotte Exchange Student Program was on a trip west at the end of the year. Honestly, I had not remembered that I had this picture, though I did remember that we had stopped in San Francisco. I came back from that visit with a sweatshirt I had bought in Sausalito, where I didn't even go this time around...

What a terrible haircut I had - and you can't see how ugly my glasses were, thank goodness. Another picture I found was this:

I do remember taking that one - I was out on a walk on the 24th, it was sunny and too warm for the season and I saw this little dandelion and imagined I would write a children's book with a story of "The Little Dandelion who wanted to Celebrate Christmas". Never happened...

The good thing about celebrating a day before is that one is basically 'done' on the real day, and in earlier years I used to be completely relaxed in case I still needed to do a bit of shopping for the upcoming days when the supermarkets would be closed. Today, Sunday, I could just sit down in leisure and play with my sewing machine. 

I finished the baby quilt I have made using up the blocks from my aborted first attempt at making a temperature quilt. It hasn't been given to the child yet, but I am happy with it. Actually, I was amazed at how lively the colors shine in the quilt, which seemed to suggest that it wasn't a bad choice of color range after all - although you can't see it well on the picture.

But it was over-intellectual in how I was trying to incorporate an average temperature in the large triangles. Now I am glad it's found a purpose, nine single blocks remaining that will be the background for my contribution to the EQA-Birds-Challenge coming up.

And I continued on my piece that will be entered for Brno. Still some work to do, and some issues to figure out, but I was happy stitching.

Thanks for following this blog, wishing you a peaceful and quiet time and change of year!

CQC Int. Inc. (or, Clandestine Quilt Carriers on the Move)

Is it because I have been more obsessed with the price of shipping quilts in recent years, or what has changed that I get the feeling I have become a member of a ‘clandestine quilt carriers network’?

One thing is bringing EQA-challenge quilts to Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, to exhibit, or back after they have completed their tour. This has been a common event for all the years that I have been the international representative for the German Patchwork Guild. Another thing is taking a number of quilts from a number of different quilters and all supposed to be going into different exhibitions or locations after having been handed on to somebody else. (Not to mention finally getting back my quilt from the SAQA-tour which customs wouldn’t give me back, which I have written about before.)

In Ste. Marie-aux-Mines I picked up my quilt from the Wide Horizons which finished earlier this year.

 

A Scrap a Day

And received back one quilt from a 20 Perspectives tour after it had been traveling for a year. 

 

Bridging the Cultural Gap (2022) -
note that this one contains pieces from the same vintage kimono
I am using for the piece I am currently working on, see last post.

I also collected quilts from several other 20 Perspectives members to be shown in Brno in April. 

Collecting quilts from 20 Perspectives for Brno in April

But before the event I had also been contacted by Annie Labruyère about five Germany-related quilts from the 70,237-project which were still in her possession from just before the pandemic, would I take them back because she just couldn't store them anymore at her house. Of course I said yes, and I picked them up from the stand of France Patchwork after Annie had to go home earlier than expected.

The bag with 5 quilts in it

 

Quilt no. 521, combining patches from Israel and Germany,
for the 70,237 project

 

Now I am taking these quilts on to Houston, and either I will give them to somebody who will take them to Tennesse to then be picked up to go on to Atlanta.

In Houston, also, I will take over several quilts, again from members of 20 Perspectives, to come to Germany with my and then be shown in Brno. As far as I know right now, I am not taking a quilt of mine to give to anybody there because that will go to France to be taken to Australia… if I remember correctly.

Do you understand why I sometimes don't know where my quilts are?