Developments in the background

 

My son and I spent a few nice days in Cologne at the beginning of the month. We went to the chocolate museum, 

 

the sports museum, 

 

My son found his Olympic grandfather and is taking a picture as proof.

and one day we took the train to Bonn to go and see the Museum of History of the Federal Republic of Germany. This museum is free of entry charge, and it is so filled with interesting information that it is well worth going there more often. 

 

One of the very famous pictures in connection with the
building of the Berlin Wall in 1961.

Of course, that is not easily possible for us, living over 500 km away, but anybody who happens to be near should take the opportunity!

I was surprised to learn that my son claimed he had never heard of the famous Cologne Water:

Even more surprised, when he claimed he thought it smells pretty good...

 I took him into the Cathedral where we listened to a short organ recital and prayer, sitting opposite the famous glass window by Gerhard Richter.

And I went and visited Ernst Barlach's Soaring Angel, couldn't leave the city without that.

Then life turned very busy, as work became more intense again. Our hospital went back to full schedule in the operations room and thus I am not in danger anymore of being sent around to other wards ‘helping out’. Which means my period of vocational adjustment finally turned serious indeed. There are days when I am optimistic I will make it, and others when I think I will never be able to fit everything into my brain, differentiate between the various systems of implants for hips, knees, or get the whole procedure memorized... Today is one of the latter, but Friday was one of the former.

Pedestrians in front of the Messe station just before we returned home from Cologne.

 

Meanwhile, some things have been happening in the background. It started in the summer, when Susan Callaghan gave a talk at one of the online meetings of the regional SAQA zoom meeting for SAQA Europe/Middle East. After finishing the talk she mentioned she was planning to start an international quilt group, would people be interested to join, get in touch with her... Initial difficulties with zoom links almost discouraged me completely, I had even started writing a mail in which I said I was not going to join the group after all, but something made me change my mind, and am I glad I did. The group has taken off with the speed of lightning, and today is our first reveal date, within the group, but we are going public in a few days. Here is a detail shot of my first piece.

"Bridging the Cultural Gap" (text messages???), detail. 40 x 43 cm, 2022.

 More about this in a few days!

Happy New Year!

For the second year in a row the shops were not allowed to sell fireworks prior to New Year’s Eve. There was only very little firework going off at midnight on the 31^st. (I kind of like it –less air pollution, less dirt on the streets next morning... Why can’t we have controlled fireworks staged on that occasion without everybody just blasting about?) What will the world be like next year?

Just one year ago we were excited about the newly admitted vaccine – who would have thought that Germany would be carrying the red lantern in Europe in terms of vaccination by this time? So many extensions of lockdown that we endured earlier during the year should have taught them something, I would have assumed – but obviously people have not seen enough ‘effects’ of the virus actually taking its toll in terms of illness, and victims, to understand.  I always think people who refuse to get vaccinated should spend a week working on ICU, nursing somebody who is infected with the virus. Would it teach them something? (Perhaps not – even a friend from the course, who has done duty on ICU ward, is not getting vaccinated...) Anyway – that year is over, and here’s to a Happy and New one:

 

I managed to go exercising pretty regularly
the past few days, and took the time to
put this new date number together yesterday, practising ...

We were fortunate to have several days of sunshine in a row. Too warm for the time of year, but after seemingly endless weeks of dull and grey I could not but enjoy the sunshine. I went out with my walking sticks several days in a row, and it has done me very good to be out in the sunshine. 

This is the view ofour garden, and even that is cheering me up.

 

Lovely light conditions in the forest.

Interesting details to be seen along the way.

I have also done some sewing, some knitting – and today I sat down seriously with the intention to continue on the piece on the topic of ‘bridge’ that I have mentioned briefly before. Still not going into too much detail telling about it – but I decided on putting text on it, I assembled a few relevant terms, and started stitching. As with the purple monster I have again faced the difficulty of transferring the text onto the fabric if I don’t want to use dissolvable stuff that needs to be put into warm or even hot water. This time I used a different kind of transparent paper, which was very satisfying to sew the outlines of the lettering, as it is a bit more sturdy than what I used last time.

 

However, it has the same negative effect of having to be peeled off. 

 

One (though admittedly, not the only one) reason why I don’t like to do any kind of foundation paper piecing is the necessity to remove the paper from below. Why on earth do I inflict on myself the necessity to remove the paper from the top? I may have to do some research as to other methods, or have to resort to completely improvisational writing, or work with templates again?

Yesterday I would have left to go cross country skiing with my son, had he not contracted a knee injury which prevents him from doing any kind of exercise. We are going to Cologne tomorrow instead. Not that this was on any position of the list of places I desperately want to go to, but he got to choose, and off we go.

“Between the Years”

Early in December I spent a few days on Lake Constance, trying to relax after two and a half weeks of working in ICU. I went to the thermal baths, tried to ignore that I had chosen an apartment completely sub-standard (ugly and cold!), and just tried to relax. Participated in two interesting zoom sessions, read books in bed, knitted... 

Since then I have returned to the operating room, but a total of three weeks away also meant that I had to reorient myself. After only four weeks since beginning I hadn’t been acclimatised enough that this is an easy task. This pandemic is posing an additional strain on my phase of introduction to the new job.

However, I have taken myself back to the sewing maching, if only short periods so far, but I am getting back into a bit of a sewing mood. Since I challenged myself about wearing the purple pants vs. finishing the quilt, I took the purple monster off the design wall and have resumed stitching the letters.

 

I have already worn the purple pants, too, so I guess I have declared myself officially an old woman, according to the statement of Jenny’s poem. The strange thing is that in this short time in the operating room I have repeatedly seen people on the operating table who, by sheer numbers, are just a very few years older than I am – or my age even! – and I look at them and think, “this is an old person!” I am shocked to see them, appearing a lot older (to me) than I feel about myself. Gives me a lot to think about every time it happens. Am I much older than I think?

We have had terrible weather in terms of low fog, lack of sunshine, and ten days ago my husband and I just took off on Sunday, driving south, until we would – as pre-determined by a weather app – find sunshine. There we took a long walk along the shores of Lake Chiemsee, trying to jumpstart our vitamin D production. 

 

Christmas has come and (almost) gone, 

 

mother-in-law is staging a personal show to attract attention, my husband is working as always, and next year I probably will be working at least one of the days, too. 

Germany is going through a lot of discussion how to deal with the new virus variant, and supposedly we will end the year similarly as it started, with restrictions and/or lockdown... So it’s good to be able to sit down with knitting, or work on my contribution to SAQA Europe/Middle East’s project of the “Orient Express”.

The thing under the text is supposed to imitate this: 

I hope to be able to make it more recognizable through quilting.
 

And I want to take up again a regular schedule for exercising. Even in weather like this.

 

Merry Christmas!

 Wishing you all a merry ducky Christmas!

"Here comes the sun!"

 It is my turn today to be featured as the week's supplyer of the SAQA Europe and Middle East's group picture on facebook and Instagram. 

I had been scheduled for this date for a long time, and for almost that whole time I had thought I would be posting the picture of my quilt that is in the Forced to Flee exhibit, currently traveling with SAQA (and which will next be shown at Bedford Gallery @ the Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, California: February 26 - June 19, 2022). But on the past Monday, when I joined the SAQA regional zoom meeting after not having been able to for a couple of times, and they were talking about music in quilts, how music affects us in our quilting, the importance of music for our quilting, I realized that I had a rather musical quilt in the backdrop. It has relatively recently come home from traveling with an exhibition organized by France Patchwork, and I realized that it would be a perfect candidate for the group picture. So I changed my mind, and because I hadn't sent anything to Birgit Schüller yet, it was easy. Then I realized that I had not even posted anything about this quilt on the blog either, although it is part of my series text messages (which currently gives me a headache because I have lost count of how many quilts I have made, but that is another story). This must have happened because I made it in a very brief period of time, just before the deadline. Then it was accepted quickly, gone right away, and I had not even had time to get a proper photo. 

So here is a little bit of introduction to the quilt. It got started by coincicdence. I saw France Patchwork's challenge fabric at Ste. Marie-aux-Mines: a piece of linen, with a good amount of yellow. Any kind of yellow gets me hooked, and this was very fine linen. But when I asked whether I could buy a piece Catherine Bonte just gave it to me, between EQA representatives, I guess, and said "but you do have to enter!" Title of the challenge: Do Ré Mi Lin. Part of the musical scale, with a slur into fabric, should be easy. Plenty of time, the winter passes, spring rolls around, and here I am, haven't even started on the piece. But suddenly it all came together. I had this cut out sun lying around, 

 

which came from some other piece I was making, and definitely did not want it to go to waste. Sun always goes with yellow, I have this thing with light, I love music, and when you talk about sun and music you just have to think about the Beatles' song "Here comes the sun" (composed by George Harrison), wouldn't you agree? I know other poems and lyrics on the topic of the sun, one of my absolute favorite songs is a Swedish folk song about a sunset on Kajsa's bank on the lake, 

 

a few lines from Ingeborg Bachmann, something Spanish, 

 

and a French chancon. A couple of Afghanistan embroideries from the Guldusi project went in as well,

 

and it all just came together as text messages 20.

Can't believe I didn't write about this one - it was such a happy making, so easy and flow like. If all quilt making was like this, and the sun were out ...

On and on and on...

The numbers of infection are at an all-time high here now. And still rising. Last year we were talking about the 35/50 limits where severe measures would be put into place, in the spring it was 100, now we have surpassed the 1,000 and the incoming government with the newly elected parliament have put 'an end' to the 'pandemic situation' that used to be mentioned in the law. It makes you wonder whether they are completely out of their mind, or what is happening here? I am very grateful I received my third shot yesterday a week ago, because by now I have been transferred to working (helping out) on ICU, and believe me, that is absolutely no fun at all. Every single case who needs intensive care in our hospital has not been vaccinated. And I ask myself where did these people live for the past 2 years? Everybody could have been vaccinated by now, the predictions of what would come if this did not happen before this winter were out there - and still people think their 'right to decide' and their 'right to physical integrity' counted higher than their duty to contribute to the entire society's physical integrity by helping to break this virus' spread? I am so disappointed with my fellow Germans, it is beyond words. Especially now that I am working in the hospital, having to risk my physical integrity and health by taking care of these egotists and dealing with their stupidity. I am MAD. So so so so mad... And now there are reports about the yet again new and more infectious variant of the virus. That is completely disheartening.

Right now, I don't know whether it will be possible to go for my little four day vacation I had planned at the beginning of December, and for which I have booked a holiday apartment. We are supposedly facing a lockdown for unvaccinated persons, but I don't know yet how far restrictions will apply to people who have been vaccinated yet. Will they allow private tourist travel, or will that be forbidden? Will my 16-yr-old once again have to stay home, no basketball practice, but be forced to go to school? I think he is perfectly right when he says his 'social life' doesn't happen on school grounds, he wants to go to basketball practice. And why should professional soccer players be allowed to 'play', but the young people not? 

I woke up with a sore throat and a headache this morning and as we are supposed to stay at home from work with symptoms of a cold, I did that. A test was negative, which is a relief, after all I have been assigned to the ICU for the past two weeks and, althought the 'outside' relief personnel is usually the person who makes sure that personnel 'in' the cubicles with Covid patients has all the material and medication they need without having to leave the isolation room, of course that means that I am exposed to the overall environment, and in some cases I did have to dress up in all the protective gear and assist a colleague with handling of immobile, artificially respirated and/or sedated patients.

But as I got to stay home, I was able to make the most of my good intentions I had announced on my instagram account two days ago. I had planned to not spend money on the so-called 'Black Friday' on some supposedly sale item, but to dedicated my time to continue mending one of my mending projects, the light pair of pants. It had been sitting on my table, biding its time in a state of neglect since some time in the late summer.

So I took this mending project to bed and between sleeping a little and resting I got a heap of stitching done. 

The piece of fabric I am attaching here is an older piece of linen, not exactly the same quality as the pants, but I like the look of it. It is rather big, too, not only a small mend.

I went down the entire piece of linen, and then started circling around in one direction, then the other, to slightly secure the fraying edges.

And then, because I found myself in a kind of flow, I just went ahead and started on the next patch.

So Mending Friday instead of spending Friday was a good day for these pants. This is how they look from the front now.

And this is the back side.

I wouldn't exactly say they're beautiful. But they are a statement, and I will proudly wear them this coming summer, and many more.

And in the evening I went down into the basement and brought up our choir and orchestra of angels to start the Christmas decoration.

Unfortunately, no Christmas markets this year, again, so we won't be adding a new member. But it is reassuring to see these little fellows on our window sill. If I feel well again tomorrow, I will start on Christmas cookies tomorrow. Traditions are soothing, perhaps they will help tie me over this oncoming next wave of virus...

On mending matters, and on wearing purple

I don’t really own a pair of (discarded) jeans that could be used as a quarry for my mending project of the one pair of blue jeans that I started mending where/when necessary. And my son isn’t really producing jeans (yet) that I could sneak from him when he outgrows them. So just a few weeks ago my friend Regine gave me a worn-out pair of jeans for this purpose, at the same time I made up my mind that the blue pair and a light-colored pair of trousers would be my only two mending projects in terms of pants.

 

I believe in wearing clothes for a long time, and I do enjoy the work of mending. However, my inner critic is very strong and when I look at people who publish books about mending (which don’t teach me anything new in terms of techniques or ideas, but I just never would think about publishing a book with that topic) I start thinking ... and comparing ... Usually my jeans/pants need mending in delicate places, due to excessive bike riding around town, and an attractively stylish patch on the thigh is not the regular mend I am faced with. 

Because of the wear and tear my pants are prone to suffer,
I have also decided that I would happily turn to mending
by machine whenever possible, to save time.

But about a week ago I realized that my well-loved pair of yellow jeans is indeed beginning to get to the state where it might need mending, too, and given the path of worldly things I can figure out that the red one may be getting there, too, in not too long a time. Both of these I don’t want to part with anytime soon. So I took a trip to the thrift store and was going to buy, if possible, a pair in yellow and a pair in red, for future reference as mending materials. After all, yellow has been fashionable lately, and who knows how long that will last, I figured it would be easy to find a pair right now. The color arrangement on the rack in the thrift store, however, was so alluring that I ended up with several more than I had intended. 

 

And I did resist several others which would have been a wonderful color addition to this palette, you have to believe me. I was short of time when I went in there and didn’t try any of them on until later at home. Only the black and the purple fit me, the yellow and red are meant to be cut up.  The others I will send to a charity organization in Hamburg that makes design clothes and accessoires from used denims and order a jacket made from them. If they make jacket on commission, the website does not state that, only accessoires - I have sent an enquiry.

When I was a lot younger than now I had a purple blazer, which I liked a lot. I wore it on the first day when I started teaching at the university. And it helped – an older professor was already teaching in the classroom that had been designated to me, and I had to stand my ground to defend my rights. Which was easier wearing a purple blazer, believe me. Unfortunately, that blazer disappeared somewhere along the way, I don’t have it anymore, which I deeply regret.  

Last year (or was it even two years ago?) I started a quilt on the poem Warning, more commonly known under its first line “when I am an old woman I shall wear purple...” by Jenny Joseph. I have had a red hat before, and worn it – but it, too, has disappeared. When I started the quilt – which has stalled a bit because I made a serious mistake and have not yet gathered new momentum to continue after I discovered that mistake – 

 

I had not been considering to be wearing purple any time soon. (When does being an old woman actually begin...?) 

Now this pair of purple jeans is waiting for me. Which will happen first – the completion of the quilt, or me wearing the purple jeans?