Sending to Australia

 

Off he goes...

Three weeks ago I put my 21-yr-old onto a plane to Australia where he will spend his ‘semester abroad’. (As he is studying in the Netherlands, ‘abroad’ from our point of  view anyway, this is indeed a special situation. He could have gone to Düsseldorf, but, not surprisingly, that wasn’t abroad enough for him.) Hard to believe that the funny little boy is so grown-up that he manages and undertakes things like that by himself now. Well, not exactly or entirely by himself, the parents are paying, and some organizational matters... But now he is gone, has arrived at his destination after a short stopover in Sydney and is finding his footing in his first weeks of studies.

I used him as a kind of letter-pigeon and asked him to post a letter to India Flint which contained my contribution to her collaborative international stitching project for an exhibition in February 2027.

She had written about that on her Substack last November, asking for embroidered pieces of remembrance, all in neutral colour “with perhaps a few mother-of-pearl buttons”. I had immediately known that I wanted to contribute but had lingered as to what to embroider on my piece of linen. My father’s name? Larger issues, such as peace of mind, humankind, humanity? Slightly preposterous, but it was on my mind. Finally, I decided on 'Palästina', the German version of Palestine. That offers three opportunities to attach a mother-of-pearl button for the Umlaut-dots and the dot on the I (which my father’s name would not have made possible). And I chose the German version, because I wanted to express that my grief for Palestine is the harder for me because I am fully aware that the German persecution and attempted extinction of Jews were very influential in the founding of the state of Israel, and thus in everything that has passed in that area since then. 

I managed not  to take a photo of the finished piece from the front, but only from the back.

Backside of a piece of linen with "Palästina" stitched onto in chainstitch

 My son has let me know that he has posted the item, and it remains to be seen whether it will be visible in whatever India Flint will make out of it.

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.

The Whale and The World Beyond

 

For the past several weeks Germany was obsessed with a humpback whale’s fate after it got stuck on a sand bed in the Baltic (where it wasn’t supposed to be to begin with). It wasn’t possible to avoid being confronted with the steps of development in the poor creature’s fate. Attempts at rescue, re-grounding, then after several weeks they transported it to the North Sea to be released, now the tracker is not transmitting – is it dead or was the tracker dismantled? 

Still media coverage – and all that time I was wondering whether it would be possible to write a theatre play about this, titled “The Whale”. I would have liked to contrast all these whale drama developments with the real problems going on in the world right now. And there are many that appeared to be of much less concern to the German media recently than the poor whale. I have tried to put all my thoughts about this into a blog post – which did get written, but the play will not. But then I decided I wasn’t going to write about the whale either. I bet there are enough places on the internet where you can inform yourself about the developments. (Breaking news of the day there is a dead whale near Denmark, but not certain yet whether it is the same one.... )

Instead I will be happy that the third box of EQA quilts arrived, that I get to put it up in the CCS in Suhl for German Patchwork Gilde’s annual event and that I will be in a patchwork bubble for a few days.

Bea, Monika and Regina were a fantastic team of helpers. 
Never have I been involved in such a quick putting-up of an exhibition! 
Admittedly, well prepared through prior presentations, beginning in Alsace, and, latest, Finland.
Thank you to everybody involved ahead of us!

View onto a minor section of half of the "Contrast" EQA exhibit 
at Patchwork Gilde's AGM in Suhl.

 

 I know this is a bit of escapism, but I am having difficulties processing the world right now.

 

Stitching helps me, if not the world, unfortunately.

Staycation

My husband and I are on vacation - staying at our home in northern Germany because our son will be going to Australia for his semester abroad in July and we can't afford to go anywhere else right now. It feels really good not to have to go to work for a couple of weeks, I must say. I had not fully comprehended how exhausting the first few months of the year had been at work! Actually, I am starting my vacation days only today, and I have two more weeks. Nice!

This morning I left the house without taking my phone with me, which was hooked up to be charged, and I simply forgot to take it. By the time I realized I had already gone to far (by bike) that I didn't want to go back and fetch it. I didn't think I really needed it, and I didn't really. But knowing it wasn't there, I almost felt a bit, well, naked, because I had several instances where I wanted to reach for it, perhaps take a photo, or to take a note. We had gone to a book store, and I would have wanted to take down a few titles for perhaps later reading, trying to get those books through my e-book-club as I am trying to be serious about buying fewer books. The frequency of these reflexes reminded me of a moment when I was taking an online class with Lisa Call many years ago and she told us she had 'put her whole life on her phone' and at that point I thought I would never want to do that. To be honest, perhaps not my whole life, there are things digital I don't do on the phone, but isn't it amazing how much we depend on these things these days? Many advantages, but so many not quite so advantageous developments as well, and how often do you reach for the phone when a moment could be spent just being yourself by yourself and then you end up caught up in some social media environment instead. I have noticed changes in my concentration and consistency with which I follow tasks that have alarmed me, and consequentially I am trying to be more conscientious about using the phone. But it's hard going, trying to extract oneself from that digital web. And, to be honest, I love the fact that I can feel connected to many people around the world, talking to my friend in Australia, in Canada, in the USA...

So when we went for a walk this afternoon I took the phone with me again and took photos of the surroundings, the forest is just turning green.

 

I took my plunge today at a different small lake than usually.

 

Only a few kilometres from here used to be the German-German border 
from 1949 until 1989. This entire area profited from this phase of 
borderline existence and is now a natural reserve. Unfortunately, 
some people don't respect easy things such as keeping dogs on a leash, 
or keeping them out of the water. There are 3 places for visitor to take a swim, 
though.

I am happy that the apple tree I planted just a few weeks ago is already in bloom, quite abundantly for its size. (After flowering season I will remove any potential fruit beginnings ths year, so it can concentrate on building strong roots this year. But let the bees have their fun first.)

It is a bit cold for the bees still, and very windy, so I don't think 
there are that many of them out there right now.

Did some gardening, too, and am slowly discovering what's growing 
in the garden that I am seeing in spring for the first time now.

 

Spending time knitting, during my last lengthy train ride I did some serious swatching, resulting in not being able to make up my mind about which pattern to choose.

I probably have enough yarn of each color for a sweather by itself, 
but right now I think I want to combine the two, to reach a bit of diversification.

 

So I started trying myself at a knit-along. 

 

Picking a lot of debris from a rather expensive hand-dyed linen and silk yarn which is slowing me down a lot. But as I am a person who removes any label from clothing because it bothers me I am afraid that these little pieces protruding from the yarn will be a nuisance. 

 

By now it has become clear what I assumed from the beginning anyway, that I don't have enough of my original choice of yarn and I will have to morph into another color. Which is a clear plus in terms of color and interest to the piece - and with regard to the picking out of linen pieces, too, because the red does not contain any of that. I hope, when I progress further, I will be able to knit a lot faster, as the picking out makes it rather slow going right now. But I don't want to abandon the green altogether, I'd rather get it out of my stash now than having to come up with another solution.

 

Thinking about new quilt projects, too. 

This one was started before we went north, so it looks a bit different 
already and has gone beyond mere 'thinking about it'.

 

This one is emotionally charged, and still brewing.

And waiting for my custom printed fabric for my next piece of femina.