Saturday, May 31, 2014

High Noon

16 - a bright and sunny day in Landshut?

17 - train ride to Munich

18 - raw material for newspaper poems

19- special needs shopping carts 

20 - local library

21 - my shadow (plus my feet)

22 - rest area along autobahn to Karlsruhe

23 - first day of Nadelwelt Karlsruhe

24 - second day of Nadelwelt Karlsruhe

25 - third and last day in this environment

26 - taking the fabric club to the post office

27 - freshly fixed little scooter (Mama's repair job)

28 - returning home after a trip to Landshut

29 - I hate it when my son and my husband set up path blockages
in the house (which they do frequently) - this one I am
completely responsible for by myself...

30 - sorted out books

31 - working on "Shades of Green"

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Learning experiences

I have just returned from several days in Karlsruhe, where I had a vendor's booth at the Nadelwelt, a big and international event for patchwork and crafts.
I came back with a good result and lots of learning experiences.
For one thing, I learned that when you book a 3-m-front for your stall, 3 m is not necessarily what you get. I was located between two other stalls - both open to their other sides - and the separating walls between us, which we each used from our respective sides, were both situated on my floor space. Now my custom-made wooden holders for my fabrics measure 1 m each, they are meant to hook up for stability, and I was counting on putting three of them next to each other to fill up the space. But when you have 3 m of wooden holders, and only 2,94 m of front, that doesn't even make a tight fit - it doesn't fit at all. So I ended up juggling myself through the days like this:


Not exactly a pleasure to look at, but as I was standing inside the booth, I didn't see it, and so I stopped thinking about it, after I had been really annoyed on the day when I put everything up.
I had absolutely no time to look around at the exhibitions, so I can't give a report on what could be seen. Being alone in my booth I was glad that every once in a while some known face appeared, and sometimes when necessary I could ask them to keep an eye on my things and take a little run to the ladies'. Very nice of the organizers - they had put up a sign on one of the toilet doors 'reserved for vendors', so we were officially allowed to break the always long line and I could return quickly.
Whenever there was a lull in visitors - which did not happen often - I thought about how I would do things differently next time, for example I have decided that I will alter the layout of my booth, to avoid that annoyance of the missing 6 cm.
I had taken a number of packages of the newest collection of the fabric club, a variety of shades of purple.


They are now sold out - which is a first. I have not yet been sold out of the collection packages before the collection itself had been sent out to the subscribers! This only happened yesterday, after I returned home.
A number of people signed up as new subscribers for the fabric club, which is an additional plus to my overall result. So I am quite content with this adventure right now.
Yesterday was spent unpacking, getting things back in  order. Today so far has been dedicated to office business, and later tonight, when I return from being a soccer mom, I hope to get back to the sewing machine.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Fabric Club and preparations

As I was stitching away on my entry for the challenge in Ste. Marie-aux-Mines (for which the deadline is June 26, download the conditions here), I was also busy dyeing this month's fabric club.


Yesterday I cut and packed the half-meter packages. Today followed the Fat Quarter packages.


I love my fabric club, the element of surprise that still comes with it - although I do make plans for mixing ratios of dye powders, and what I want to achieve, there is always a certain degree of spontaneous decisions and alterations, and I can fully say that I never know in advance what the final outcome will look like. Cutting and packing it all is my least favorite part of it all, but when I find pieces of fabric that look like this


I relish in the results. And hope that the recipients do so, too. And I have no problems with letting these fabrics go out into the world, in fact I enjoy knowing that other people will receive their packages and hopefully experience a little bit of an "ooooh!"-factor when they open it and see what they are getting. The May Collection will be sent out to their destinations next Monday - after I return from Karlsruhe. From Friday to Sunday I will be there with a booth, selling hand-dyed fabrics at the Nadelwelt.
Day after tomorrow I will pack up the car. It's the first time that I will be present at such a big event, and I realize I am getting more excited and nervous about this than I thought I would. What will it be - ? Should you be there, do stop by - my stand is C 3.5. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Thursday, May 15, 2014

High Noon

1 - Shades of green

2 - Dairy products in the supermarket

3 - found art
4 - through the train window on our way to Augsburg, puppet theatre

5 - threads used for stitching text

6 - visitor in our garden

7 - left out in the rain
8 - beginning scores of the grand summer yatzee tournament, with provisions

9 - rhubarb remnants

10 - after mowing the lawn

11 - local tennis match 
12 - tongue sticking out?

13 - LEGO construction site

14 - at the spinning wheel

15 - across the street from our entrance door

Monday, May 12, 2014

Stitching away 2

I've spent as much time as possible this past week stitching my entry for the Carrefour challenge "Imagine". It's taking forever. And it is an odd mixture of stupid repetition - stitching, stitching, stitching, and yet more stitching (hey, had I not said that I would never do thread painting, because it's not for me? so why am I doing this?) - yet requiring my full attention, otherwise I will have to take out stitches in the end because I ran over the boundary lines of the letters.

But I am nearing completion of the stitching of the top.

Transfer of letters onto fabric via watersoluble foil

A selection of threads used for stitching the letters

View from the back

Outlined letters - the choice of thread colour
turned out slightly unfortunate. Wouldn't use this one
again for this purpose.
And that's well enough - I have to return the machine embroidery frame, which I borrowed from Barbara, before the end of the week. Learned a lot about lettering in this process...

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Stitching away.

After finishing my quilt for the Wide Horizons IV (which needs to be taken to the photographer soon!) I have been busily stitching my entry for the challenge "Imagine" of the EPM in Ste. Marie-aux-Mines.
And it is: stitching. stitching. stitching. stitching. sometimes changing color of thread. and then again stitching etc.

A view of the backside of the top in progress.

Very tedious, making one feel rather stupid - and yet it does require a lot of concentration, or otherwise I'll run over the edge.
So my brain is dead, my eyes are tired (oh yes, now there is no longer one birthday left between me and the 50!) - but I think it will be really good. So now I will go up to my room and put in another hour or so before going to bed tonight.

Friday, May 2, 2014

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!

Thursday, May 1, 2014

High Noon

16 - High Noon at Main Station in Karlsruhe

17 - Modern Sculpture

18 - Working at the computer

19 - changeo of decoration, Christmas is definitely over,
Easter on its way

20 - Easter goodies
21 - accumulation of stuff that needs to go upstairs

22 - by the river

23 - through my window

24 - promise of summer

25 - the birds have finished their supplies

26 - found art

27 - at the rotary iron

28 - new pair of socks for my son in the making
(he picked the yarn himself)

29 - time to clean up that working table, again!

30 - grocery shopping with my rededicated bike trailer,
our best investment ever in terms of vehicles