A two-fold weekend

Last Friday I left for Dortmund where the extended board of the German Patchwork Guild met for their annual convention. I had been looking forward to this weekend for a long time. I like the other volunteers involved with the guild, it is always a very productive weekend and as this was going to be Barbara Lange’s last weekend in her position as President of the guild it was also going to be a special meeting.

Barbara Lange is showing some antique quilts which were donated to the German Patchwork
Guild`s collection and we are all admiring them...

I spent the afternoon after my arrival at the office working on an article for  the magazine, and when more and more people got together in the area where I was sitting, I put the computer down and we all started chatting and being social and eventually started eating the goodies some people had brought along. Then suddenly somebody said, hey, there is a stranger in the entrance area … and then he had disappeared. And my computer with him. The police came, and now there is a lot of paperwork to be done. And I am working on getting over the loss. (Unfortunately, my back-up system was not exactly perfect, although not completely stupid, at least most of my photos are safe.) Right now I am writing on a borrowed laptop from a friend while waiting for a replacement. And vowing to myself to be better about back-up.

After that, I could not quite enjoy the weekend as much as I had expected to. Add to that injury the insult that I heard that my two entries to the guild`s triannual challenge had not been selected... which might not have hurt so much on any other ordinary weekend, but which really did not make me happy under these circumstances.

Yes, the people were just as nice as ever, and as we are allowed to do quiet hand-stitching during the presentations I got quite a bit of stitching done on one of the UFOs I have vowed to finish in the near future. 

English Paper Piecing as a means of keeping the hands occupied while the mind
follows the presentations of Guild business matters.

But it could have been a much nicer weekend...