Summer vacation

Last Friday my son graduated from primary school. It felt as if it had been only two or three weeks ago at the most that we took him there for the first time, and now he is a keen and striving ten-year-old, ready to head on to secondary school. He had been counting down the days since April! But to be honest – he believes he already knows everything there is to know and thinks having to go to school for another eight years is rather a waste of time... there may be interesting times ahead of us in this respect.

So now we’re on vacation. I am not going to Festival of Quilts in Birmingham this year, and although we are not going away as a family either, we are taking it very easy. I have taken several naps in my hammock. I’ve been reading in the hammock, too.

We have been sailing once, but as it was simply too hot today it may be a couple of days before we get back to the boat.

Some reflections, of course. The lake is always good for that!

I did some spinning on my still relatively new spinning wheel. I have been knitting a pair of socks, on the occasion of which my husband took this wonderfully flattering photo of me:

Which I’ve used to do a bit more exercises of things I learned in the Pixeladies’ onlineclass.

I try to tell myself that in these versions the frown is not quite as visible, but I am not sure that I have managed to convince myself...

My son and I are getting ready to change the yarn-bombed bike’s appearance as it had faded considerably. 

Right now we have taken down last year’s adornment and are waiting for the materials which we want to use for the new installation. We will be getting that from the car dealer across the street, stay tuned for a report sometime next week!

I am also taking a vacation from the refugees. I told them I would not be available for these two weeks except in the real emergency of a letter of deportation, and so far I have been pretty good about it. Not entirely perfect, a few interferences happened today. But I am telling myself that this must be a real break, and that going back to it after our vacation must be in a different mode. I was just not getting anything done of my real-life-issues anymore, and that’s not how it should be. So these two weeks of abstinence must be a serious preparation. Tomorrow I may go back to the longarm. 

Textiles in Museums: The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef - The Föhr Reef

A few days ago I posted about the museum of art on the island of Föhr, where my family and I are spending a holiday. I certainly would have gone to see the museum at some point during our stay, no matter what, even despite the limitations due to the fire earlier this year. But there was also a special point of interest that drew me there rather quickly after our arrival on the island. When we had started browsing the officially published list of activities for tourists I had noticed an entry for a “Crochet Meeting for the Coral Reef” at the museum. A special maritime kind of guerilla knitting, I wondered? An article on the children’s page of the local island newspaper brought some enlightenment:

Of course, the museum had some information (in German) on their homepage.

And then I started researching the internet.

The Föhr Reef is a satellite of the international art project „The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef”  which was started by Margaret and Christine Wertheim and their Institute for Figuring, they use hyperbolic crochet forms to create large communal pieces  of art. There is a blog, too, but when I first looked before writing this, the last post had been published over a year ago .

Strangely enough, when I was about 12 years old I spent quite some time doing what they call „hyperbolic“ crochet – only I did not know that I was doing a model solution for a kind of space that even mathematicians hadn’t solved at that stage. I was just making wild skirts for my Barbies, because I wanted to be a fashion designer. Had I only known what I was doing! I might be a famous mathematician by now (except for my belief about the lack of mathematical talent...)

Anyway – hyperbolic crochet entered the art scene after Latvian mathematician DainaTaimina   had the idea of producing models of hyperbolic space in crochet. 

She has published a book on this, and there is an official book published by the Institute for Figuring.

The Föhr Museum also has a link to a German pdf-version of instructions on their homepage. 

So it turned out that our holiday was extremely ill-timed: I was too late to participate in the crochet sessions. The announcement in the list of activities was a mistake, the last session had taken place on May 20th. They were already assembling the reef. And we had timed our departure from the island, which included reservations on the overnight train, for exactly that hour when the display would be opened... So all there was left that I could do was my little research, and the visit to the museum, trying to catch a glimpse.

All over the museum’s premises you would encounter little bits of crochet coral: in the shop, outside decoration on trees, and in the museum restaurant.

On display is the official postcard of the international coral reef project:

And there is a postcard of the Föhr satellite on sale, too:

At that stage you were still allowed to look down onto the assembly area where the complete reef would ultimately be on display. They were mounting the Föhr production of crochet corals onto specially built wooden constructions which would then be integrated with several similar pieces of the international reef. Ultimately, the exhibition will travel on to other places. The guard assumed that the assembly area would closed off a few days later until the official opening, so I was lucky to catch this glimpse:

So this is a very inofficial glimpse of the possibilities. I was fascinated by the ingenuity of the makers, and the many many possibilities of turning crochet into ‘maritime art’.

During the time I was there, a group went on a tour through the museum, and while I kept trying to avoid them on most of my personal tour of the entire house, I could not escape them when standing in awe of the reef. These are approximate translations of some of the comments I heard:

• They must have lots of money on this island if they can throw it away on stuff like this.
• I’m too stupid to understand this kind of art.
• This is carnival in the psychiatric institution!
• They shouldn’t be allowed to charge any entry fee for this place at all.
• What’s this supposed to be.

Their guide’s interesting commentary and explanations did not really reach them.

What do you think – is this art?


That's how much I got to see when I went there last Tuesday. But it's not the end of the story yet. More to follow soon.

Guerilla Knitting Award 2012

On Friday and Saturday this past week I taught a course at the patchwork meeting of the German Patchwork Guild (Patchworkgilde Deutschland e.V.). Due to family reasons I could not stay the whole time, the event continues through today. The first thing I want to presenet here that really impressed me was the small solo exhibit by Silke Bosbach in Johannisberg. 

Silke Bosbach works with modern techniques of shibori, and she has published a book on her projects with Haupt-Verlag.

Photography was not allowed in the exhibit, but I have taken pictures of some of the objects which were also exhibited from the book I had bought:

And: Silke Bosbach is calling for entries to the „Guerilla Knitting Award 2012“.

Entries are supposed to be-knit outdoor objects, sculptures, lamp posts or whatever.

A first public presentation, including the presentation of awards will occur during the h+h cologne 2012 which takes place March 23 -25, 2012.

Knitting was the first textile technique I mastered, and for many years I was an avid and very creative knitter. My grandmother had taught me to knit by preparing a ‚magic ball’ of yarn: she had re-rolled a ball of yarn, putting some little goodies inside, which kept me motivated and going because I wanted to find out what would appear next. The final big surprise was a coin of five marks, quite a lot of money for a little girl of five or six at that time. After that first initiation I was constantly knitting, even knitted for money during my daily commute to swim practice. Working on the computer later gave me tendonitis in my right arm, which put a halt to knitting for many years. But when I was expecting my son I slowly started back with a small baby jacket, and have knitted lots of pairs of socks since. And not only that.

In the beginning of June I read about Stephanie Rhode’s knitted art project „490 Houses“ in Gunzenhausen.

It seems knitting is encroaching on the art world.

Final date of entry for photos of be-knitted objects for the Guerilla Knitting Award is September 17, 2011.

I may enter – have to do a little bit of thinking to come up with a good idea...