Tuesday, October 24, 2017

texting and IQ - classes at Nadelwelt Karlsruhe

I have submitted a new class to teach at the Nadelwelt Karlsruhe in May next year, and have been accepted. So instead of selling fabrics at the stand I will be back to Nadelwelt as a teacher, May 4 through 6, 2018. Gillian Travis and I have been talking about how we will celebrate our birthdays, which happen to be on the same day and on that occasion, but we haven't decided yet what we are going to do.
The new class I will be teaching will be  a class in which I show my techniques when I am making my text messages quilts. Text is pretty popular right now, but a lot of people print on fabric whereas I have so far concentrated on stitching all the texts I am using. It will be an adventure!
The other class I will be teaching will be my class "IQ - from inspiration to quilt", which I will teach there for the last time. It has been a rather popular class, but last time I taught it I had the feeling that it needed to be re-vamped. So although I am not going to totally discontinue it, I will certainly change the schedule and concept and make it a different class, although with some of the same techniques. However, in Karlsruhe it will be the same still. So here's a last chance for gaining some IQ!
So I will not be selling my fabrics at a stand, either, but I will of course bring my fabrics to be bought in class, if students so wish.
And perhaps for the year after I might apply for an exhibition at Nadelwelt. It's been a long time since I had a solo show, and now that Maastricht has been cancelled, where I thought I had been lined up, and then a solo show in Rome also was cancelled... I think I need some more show-deadlines to push me a bit harder in terms of making quilts. But I might have decided to try to enter Quilt National next year. At least I have ideas for three quilts that would make up a decent 'body of work'. If I have enough time to get them done.
Last week I have been stitching text messages 14, which is in answer to a local challenge of the German Patchwork Guild on the theme of "(at) home".



Just a few more stitches, and then I have to figure out how to finish it. Probably won't be a three-layered quilt, but that hasn't been decided yet.

Monday, October 9, 2017

My Inner Ccritic...



I had submitted a small quilt for the SAQA Benefit Auction pretty earlier this year, long ago, in fact. And for the first time in several years I have not done any pre-advertising for the auction. Nor did I do my own ‘Dream Collection’ as I have done for several years in a row. I had not even had a chance to look at the different sections to find out which section my quilt would be in… But I received  a mail from Martha Sielman two days ago that my quilt had been sold. 

Piece for the SAQA Benefit Auction 2017
"Crossing the Red Line" - sold!

And not for the lowest auction price either. So that helped alleviate my bad conscience - which at some point prior to the beginning of the auction I had decided I would not have anyway.

About a week ago I had a small exchange with Jeanne Hewell-Chambers after quilting quilt #265 for The 70,273 Project, and I wasn’t too sure whether I really liked the pattern I had chosen. We talked about the inner critic and how you have to silence that part of your brain, and afterwards I realized that the pattern was indeed really pretty good. When you look at it, off the machine.

The 70,273 Project: Quilt #265, quilted, waiting for binding etc.
So not feeling bad about not sounding the trumpet for SAQA for once is in that same line. So much has been going on, I have been doing so many things, I might as well for once say ‘no, sorry, no time for that right now’. At least I sent in a quilt, it sold, and I will send in another one next year, too. And perhaps I will then pre-announce the auction again, too. But unfortunately I do have a very strong-voiced inner critic. I assume that is partly caused by the fact that my father, a philosopher, wrote books about achievement, performance, success, and that way such a frame of mind was vividly installed in my way of thinking. It's hard to step down from that, and it's hard to be a kind and caring observer of oneself. So when Margaret Cooter wrote about 'making time to do and make' only a few days ago I was truly touched inside. With all the things that have been going on during the past (almost) three years - since my involvement with German Refugee Politics began - there hasn't been enough of that in my life. Will it come back? I hope so. On Wednesday I am once again going to accompany one of the Senegalese students from my last year's class to the Central Foreigners Registry and Authority to try and get him a work permit. I am not expecting an easy ride (it hasn't been so far), but I have told myself once I succeed with his case, there will be more time for my own making and doing again. 
Yesterday I quilted another top for The 70,273 Project, this time it was #224. 

The 70,273 Project: Quilt #224,
quilted, waiting for binding etc.

The 70,273 Project: Quilt #224,detail

And I have started to stitch a small piece I am supposed to hand in by the end of the month. Kind of under the pressure of a deadline… 

text messages 14 in the making

But it’s been going pretty well yesterady and today, so maybe I will actually finish in time. How is that for relaxed and leisurely making and doing...? Perhaps I should take another trip to a Café Leisure soon.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Where have all the minutes gone?

It's been such a busy time since the election that I simply haven't had enough time to breathe and figure out what I could write about.
I have dyed the September selection for the fabric club, taught school, quilted for The 70,273 project, spent quite a bit of time trying to get a work permit for one of the Senegalese from last year's class after all, in a different job ...
Tomorrow I am going to Nuremberg and then on to Dürnau where I will be selling fabrics and exhibiting some quilts at a small patchwork fair. I hope next week will be a bit more on the quiet side. So I can start working on stuff that has deadlines.