Although that
little burst of snow wwe had a few days ago was rather short-lived and the next one predicted is taking a long
time actually showing up, I seem to have gone into a bit of a hibernating stage.
I have been
in the studio, doing things, but it’s been (and felt) more like this.
Scrappy.
I feel
emotionally paralyzed from the awful things that happened during the
celebrations in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, and even more so from the the
frightful discussions that have been going on since. I’m afraid that Germany’s
recent wave of welcoming towards migrants has completely dissipated into thin
air, and I am feeling very uncomfortable with all the anti-tones that are
suddenly appearing in many of the politician’s statements who had been rather
moderate during the last few months.
I am sewing
together a Jacob’s Ladder top made from entirely my own hand-dyed fabrics which
I want to display on the back of my stall when vending, to show more
traditionally oriented quilters that hand-dyed fabrics work fantastically for
traditional patterns.
And, being the person I am, of course this is an
ambitionally large piece, blanket size, so it’s taking time, as I am using
pins, nothing rotary cut, but every single square and triangle was hand-drawn
and cut with scissors, hoping to add interest to the design.
I’ve been trying
out various lace knitting patterns from a couple of English/American knitting
books because I want to develop a knit-along, translating these patterns into
German, so I’ve been making samples to check out how understandable these
patterns are.
I’ve already decided on four or five patterns, discarded one
(because it kept being short of one stitch regularly for no perceivable reason,
and that did not seem a good omen), and am planning to launch the knit-along in
May. Every three weeks participants will receive a pdf with the pattern, and it’ll
be finished by Christmas. I hope to raise some money that way which I want to
donate for organizations and projects that help children in need.
And I have
done a bit of actually creative piecing, working on my next challenge for the
International Threads, for which I am only about five months late. This one was supposed to include an embroidered square from the Afghanistan project of Pascale Goldenberg. But I did not want to turn too traditional about it, and had a long gestation period, until I finally had the idea of including the piece of tchador that I have had for a while.
Since
taking the picture I have actually started adding some hand-stitching, and I am
also planning to put it on the longarm. After all, that machine is not only
meant to do swirls on blankets, I want to use it in my own work, too.
Good that
my order of new threads arrived today.
Perhaps
hibernation is coming to a close and entering a really creative phase again.