Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Winter
We’re on
vacation. Winter vacation. And it really started being winter the day before we
left.
We managed
to get where we wanted to be, despite heavy snowfalls and very slow traffic on
the autobahn. And now we are enjoying the snow.
We don’t
have to go anywhere, the skiing track starts right outside the house where we
are staying – and supposedly it will be cleared again later during the day.
And I’m not
at all thinking about the many many metres of fabric I could have snow dyed had
we stayed at home. I’m just hoping there will be more snow there when we
return, and during January, and enjoying what we have here, right now.
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Finally!
A little bit of snow.
Lots of traffic at the bird feeder.
And I will try to set up a first box with snow dyeing tonight. But we are going away for a few days tomorrow - I just hope it will snow some more after we get back!
Lots of traffic at the bird feeder.
And I will try to set up a first box with snow dyeing tonight. But we are going away for a few days tomorrow - I just hope it will snow some more after we get back!
Monday, December 22, 2014
Death amongst quilts...
When I
arrived at the Fagus Werk on Saturday after my long train trip, we were sad to
see a little mouse which had expired in one of the sections of the room. We’re
not quite sure whether it was struck dead by the beauty of the quilts, or what
caused it’s demise...
In any case, this near confrontation with death while we
were taking down our exhibition sobered us up for a little while at least!
Packing up
is always quick, and it was easier than I had expected. This is what I would be
traveling home with:
And this
wrapped up bundle of bubble foil went into a large box and will be shipped to my home
address.
At six
o’clock, I hopped back onto the train.
And,
contrary to all expectations every single train was on time, I made all my
connections (thanks to two friendly helpers especially in Nuremberg station, where I had only eight
minutes to change platforms) and was home by midnight.
Saturday, December 20, 2014
on my way
I am currently sitting in the train on my way to Alfeld, where I will take down the exhibition "Inspiration Bauhaus". That made it necessary to get up early - and gave me the pleasure of experiencing the sunrise in Regensburg, at the main station. As can be seen in these reflections.
Monday, December 15, 2014
High Noon
1 - computer class |
2 - view from the computer classroom |
3 - my workspace during computer class, last day |
4 - waiting to be emptied |
5 - organic fruit and dairy products |
6 - Christmas market in Landshut |
7 - Our local solar field on a bright and sunny Sunday in German winter |
8 - yet another bright and sunny day in German winter |
9 - after Spanish class |
10 - Season's offers |
11 - practising what I learned in computer class |
12 - finally, I a bit of sunshine! |
13 - the result of several hours' work of carding |
14 - finishing Christmas presents while sitting in the sunny window seat |
15 - newly inserted stability, and order, in my son's book shelves |
Thursday, December 11, 2014
It's a workshop! (well, it will be...)
One of the
too many things I have been doing during the last few weeks – when I had
originally thought I would have a bit of a quieter time after returning from
Veldhoven – had started as a “what if...?”-kind-of-question last July.
When Kathy
Loomis was visiting, we had talked about the fact that there weren’t really a
whole lot of people signed up for her workshop at Nancy Crow’s Barn, and how
much fun it would have been if I could have come, because a Master Class there
was the place where we first met in person and worked side by side to each
other for two weeks. This idea of me going, however, was completely out of the
question, not only due to financial reasons. Then we started talking about
whether we would ever have the chance again to spend several days in a workshop
together, working, enjoying the company of other quilters. And a small idea
started to take form – what if Kathy, who was already then planning to come to the Prague Patchwork Meeting in April 2015, for the exhibition of our group
International Threads, flew in and out of Munich
and spent a few extra days at our place again, and could we organize a workshop
with her as a teacher...? Kathy left for her holidays in Italy and then
returned home, and for a while it wasn’t quite certain whether my family would
move before April, so any serious planning was put on hold.
Then in the
end of October a decision was made that we wouldn’t be moving anywhere before
March or April, and I started reconsidering that workshop-idea. Wasn’t it too
late to start now – definitely too late to get it published in any kind of
magazines – how much interest could be generated – would it be possible to get
the room where I teach my local patchwork classes for several days in a row
during daytime (other activities take place there, so that wasn’t exactly easy)...?
For a little while – to be precise: for a whole a week after we knew that we
would not be moving – I hesitated. Then I met quilters in Hamburg , talked to them about this idea in a
hypothetical manner, and met with a lot of interest from several sides. That’s
what spiked my organizer’s instinct – would it be possible to get a full class
for Kathy even on short notice?
After I
returned from Hamburg ,
I talked to the person responsible, and I managed to get the room, and Kathy
and I agreed on how much each participant should pay. Kathy was generous enough
to say “hey, if we have only three people, we will have three days of fun
sewing and intensive teaching, never mind the payment.” She supplied me with
several e-mail addresses of people who had expressed interest to her directly,
should she ever teach a workshop in Europe .
And I went through my own list of e-mail addresses.
Just after
the middle of November – late on Saturday night - I sent out a mass mailing
announcing that Kathy would be teaching her “Fine Line Piecing” here for three
days in April. By Sunday morning I had the first sign-up, many people replied
and were interested, even two people from England considered coming, and by
Wednesday the ten spaces were filled through receipt of down-payment. I had
thought that if we received only a few sign-ups I would then go on and post the
possibility first on the blog, then on facebood, perhaps the Contemporary Group
of the Quilter’s Guild of the British Isles ,
on the German Guild’s page, one after the other... But it never got to that. In
the end the last space was filled through a head-to-head race of receipt of
payment on my account. We have a waiting list of four people, currently. If
there were a larger room available I suppose we could go bigger, but that is
not the case.
I had never
thought that I would ever start organizing workshops for other teachers. In
fact, I kind of like having people organize workshops for me, that I don’t have
to bother about taking care about advertising etc. And I don’t think I will be
doing this more often or on any kind of regular frequency. But it was an
interesting experience to see the huge interest that could be created – and I
am really looking forward to the workshop in April! Which will take place approximately nine months after Kathy and I first talked about it...
Friday, December 5, 2014
finally slowing down...?
Don’t know
what I was thinking when I wrote about quiet weeks ahead of me, after I
returned from Veldhoven end of October. It has been
anything but. And although I am not going to go into detail about all the
things that I have been trying to finish or organize, for a while I really did
not know whether I would make it until Christmas.
But after
Monday’s trial session for the SAQA webinar to be aired this coming Tuesday, a
three day computer class for which I commuted to Munich early this week, and, finally, a
belated shipping of November’s fabric club collection today, things might slow down a
little bit now.
I hope.
The trial
session indeed was a high stress factor – I had to prepare a powerpoint presentation
which will be shown to the attendants, and I have always avoided doing
powerpoint... I wasn’t sure whether I could do a good talk on me as a quilter –
whereas I had never had much of a doubt about giving a talk about my linguistic
research when I was still doing that. But only after the trial session was
finished Monday afternoon, and I felt relaxation settling in, did I realize how
much that had been nudging me. Well, the trial went well, I will make a few
changes to the presentation, and it should be a lot of fun. If you’re a SAQA
member and haven’t signed up yet – perhaps you still can? The two other
international artists who will be presenting a talk about their environments
and how these influence their work are Barbara Lange and
Alicia Merret.
We had fun
during the trial, and I am sure it is going to be a fun hour.
This photo shows my reflection in the window right after we finished the trial - I thought I would show it here as you never get to see what I look like during the talk itself. |
My computer
class taught me a lot. First of all, how thankful I can be for living the life
I do, without having to commute to Munich
every day. There are quite a few people here who do – and it can work fine –
but a two-hour commute from door to door every day, taking a seven o’clock
train, with a return at night. Doesn’t leave you much time to do anything else.
I did learn basic skilly in photoshop, too, which I have been using in a most
amateur fashion, not really understanding what I was doing. Now I can get a
picture that originally looked like this
to look
like this. (The original actually looks more like the real day when the picture was
taken, but hey, who cares!)
I can turn
myself into a watercolour painting.
Or into a
neon sculpture.
And many
other things. What I really enjoyed was the class-room atmosphere. I took the
class in a computer school for women – women teaching women on the computer. We
had a very small class, only four pupils, which also made for a very pleasant
learning atmosphere. And although I still don’t consider myself any kind of
expert in processing pictures, I can do other things now than I used to. Of
course, this will not exactly lead to less time spent on the computer...
But now
only the Christmas baking is left as a real stress factor. Or...?
Monday, December 1, 2014
High Noon
16 - at the opening of "Tradition bis Moderne", the German Quilters' Guild's juried exhibition |
17 - making apple sauce, again |
18 - playing at Spanish |
19 - water lily, for which we still have to find a solution for the winter |
20 - coming back from Nordic Walking, we live just around the corner, behind the church |
21 - Rosi's flock of chicken |
22 - next year's plans |
23 - soccer tournament in the gym |
24 - that time of year, again |
25 - relatives in Spanish |
26 - a desk in desperate need of clearing up |
27 - heavenly choir, reflection |
28 - baking bread |
29 - rehearsal for Sunday's mass |
30 - mass, just finished |
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