June 17th

 

Going for a bike ride in the afternoon I saw this solitary rape flower in the field...

On June 17, 1953, an uprising took place in the Eastern part of then-separated Germany, people went on strike and protested against the regime, unfulfillable raising of quotas of production, political conditions. At least 50 people died when Russian troops intervened. (Find historical notes in English here. Find historical notes in German here.)

Subsequently, June 17^th was declared a National Holiday in the West, called “Day of German Unity”. It was scratched from the list of holidays when German reunification took place in 1990, and October 3^rd became the new National Holiday.

In a way, the events of June 17, 1953, influenced my family’s history.  Shortly afterwards a brief period of family reunifications began and my grandmother and her two younger daughters (one of them would become my mother) could legally leave the GDR to join my grandfather, who had left the country by swimming through a small river after he had been told that Russian authority were planning to arrest him. Without that uprising, who knows what would have happened?

As the day came and went this year I read several newspaper commentaries on the fact that Germany currently does not have a Memorial Day for victims of GDR-rule, and only this year a first (temporary) memorial was created in Berlin. The history of Germany as a divided country is still very present in my mind due to the fact that my mother’s eldest sister stayed behind because she was already married when her mother and sisters left, and her husband thought he could not leave the small business he had taken over from his parents – only to be disappropriated a few years later. I always thought it would have been rather appropriate to keep June 17^th as a national holiday. Or choose November 8 or 9 as a day of national remembrance, because so many historical events took place on that day, it would have made much more sense than taking October 3^rd.

After the last couple of rather emotional weeks and a lot of work I have gone to be with my husband for a few days and could use the not-anymore-holiday as a quiet day. Yesterday and the day before I had finally sat down to work on my newest piece for the next 20 Perspectives challenge. The topic is “3D”, which is not my piece of cake at all, but I just had to go along with the group’s decision. Which resulted in me putting it off for much longer than was wise, except for a little bit of planning a few weeks ago.

 

Using denim – which I never expected to be doing in quilts – I am working on an appropriated version of Henri Matisse’s “Blue Nude”. Attaching the denim bits on the background fabric was relatively quick and easy.

 

Now I wonder why I had the idea to use seed stitch for the entire background…

 

 Listening to an audio book, sitting on the balcony and enjoying the sunshine time passed pleasantly enough, and I already got a lot of the stitching done.

Fortunately, reveal date was pushed back by 2 weeks, so I will be relatively close to finishing, I hope, by the time that date rolls around.

Musings? Off to Verona!

 

My last post grandly announced thoughts on approaching the age of ‘senior citizen’, but after I had posted it, I realized that that promise was not fulfilled. This happened probably mostly due to the fact that, as is so frequent now, the post was composed over a few sessions, a few days apart, and then thoughts wander and the text turns out differently than planned, thoughts get lost, connections disappear, and it all is still supposed to make sense, have meaning. And sometimes it doesn’t, or at least not enough.

Upon the realization that I had not delivered, I wondered, do I still need to offer grand thoughts on turning 60? Being (only) a philosopher’s daughter, not a philosopher myself (although I did take a few courses in philosophy while studying at the university), I may not be fully entitled to do so. My cousin sent me a congratulatory image “60 is the new 40”, only a few weeks ago I myself had congratulated a now 75-yr-old with “75 is the new 60”, so it still seems that the age number is something that we feel needs belittling, or redefining?

I sometimes listen to two different podcasts on ageing, or being wise, I follow @ageingdisgracefully on Instagram, … and when I tried to write something about my thoughts on ageing it turned into rambling, so I have scrapped it all and will not bother you with it. When I compare myself to my grandmother, whom I only got to know her when she was 64 already, and try to picture her as “her, then” and “me, now” there is a noteable difference in appearance. She would never have dressed the way I do now, she would not have ridden a (man’s) bike at that age – not sure whether she ever rode a bike at all - and there are probably a lot of other things I (still) do that she would never have done. Wouldn’t it be interesting to talk to her-aged-64, now that I am getting close to that age! In any case, it didn’t feel terribly different being 60 than it had felt being 59 on the day before. One thing I do hate about getting older is the changing vision, glasses just don’t seem to be able to cover for all my needs and I am juggling several different pairs, constantly shifting the multifocals up on my head when looking at the small screen or even changing to a different pair when writing on the computer. Perhaps I may feel differently ten years from now, when the next decade has passed. But I won’t try to write about that anymore, it’s not the topic I want to pursue here.

I went to Verona last weekend, visiting Verona Tessile, with the ultimate mission of picking up EQA’s member challenge ‘Birds’ which will be shown at Patchwork Gilde’s AGM and Patchworktage in 9 days. Tiziana from Quilt Italia and I were a bit concerned whether a courier would really get the shipment to me a) on time and b) to the right place. 

 

A friend of mine and I traveled together, equipped with three suitcases, and took the opportunity to combine a bit of touristy sight-seeing with visiting the textile exhibitions spread out over downtown Verona.

As it happens, I also had two quilts/works on display at Verona Tessile, namely my contributions to the EQA challenge ‘Birds’ and the Swiss challenge for Round Bobbins.

A view into the entire Round Bobbin Exhibition that was aptly displayed in a theatre.

The yellow one is mine...

 

I loved seeing SAQA Europe/Middle East’s “Oue Heritage”, which, unfortunately I had not had time to participate in. 

 

And it was fun to see “Ein Quilt für München”, a collaborative piece with contributions from all partner cities of Munich, Verona is also one.

 

 And it was fun to see quilts from former students of mine, in this case Paola Zanda - who was a master seamstress before she took a class from me, so she probably knew more about sewing then than I did, we are good friends now.

Il ballo en maschera by Paola Zanda

 

Befittingly, just after returning from this trip I finished my contribution to the celebration of the city partnership Nürnberg-Cordoba, which will be on display in Nürnberg in June, and in Cordoba in November. International relations...

Der Anfang vom Ende von der Legende von der flachen Scheibe
(The Beginning of the End of the Legend about the flat disc),
2025, 40 x 60 cm

 

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.