I lost count.

As lockdown here has been relieved slightly, some school classes are beginning to go back and my son is asking my why he can’t stay in home schooling for the rest of his school years. This, although he still has several weeks before his class will be called back, in two-weekly intervals only, and so he will see the school building from the inside probably not much more than three weeks or so before summer vacation. Of course, the way our conversations go on a regular basis I know very well that home schooling him would never work in our combination of temperaments, and it is not allowed in Germany anyway. He has lost count of how many weeks he has not been in school. (I do worry about how his education is going to continue, though. Not clear on how it all will go on…)

I myself have lost count of the numbers of UFOs I have spread out through the house, the studio, my knitting baskets. Some of them old and rediscovered. But at least half a dozen of them pandemically new. Well, who knows how long this thing will laslt, perhaps they will not stay unfinished forever, perhaps not even for long? I know that sounds and is ambitious – but I can announce that I did indeed finish two of mine, and a quilting commission for a friend.

My first finish – and I mean complete finish, with a sleeve, and a title and a sign that states the title, is my contribution to the SAQA benefit auction. It is a woven quilt, made from silk strips I bought in Birmingham, it must have been two years ago or so, including two pieces of ribbons that had been splattered amidst the heap of debris on my working table. One of the ribbons has LOVE written on it repeatedly, and the other REPEAT. Add a fragment of a handmade mask as they have so quickly come to be all over, made from an old dish towel. And then earth and some continents in contour stitched over that – “Love. Protect. Repeat.” As there is text involved, I figured it should be part of my “text messages” series. Unfortunately I seem to have somehow lost count of how many pieces there are in the series by now. At least in my mind. So I guessed it might be number 20. Made the label.

But: As I am clearing up the working table in my studio I keep stumbling over reminiscences of “oh yeah, that one, too…” The disappearance of some of my data due to the loss of my laptop doesn’t help in this case, either – but lo and behold, I did save most of my pictures in October as a precaution (however, not the document data, stupid me). So when I figured out which of the four external hard drives I have accumulated indeed holds these files of pictures I got to look up the appropriate number. As it turns out, there is a number 20 already touring France, or, being lockdowned in France I should say these days. And as I have another text piece in the works, this one is 22. So do I redo the label, which is stitched on the sleeve… or what? Oh dear, the kind of problems we have these days!

Correct Number: 22
"Love. Protect. Repeat. (text messages 22)"

The other piece is the finished black and yellow top , but I will write about that when it comes off the longarm (which it is going on to later today). Certainly have to figure out which number that one is, too, because it has been so long since I added a piece to the series Play of Lines!