Scrappy hibernation

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.

Being a student again

When I was having a severe creative slump in early March I decided on the spur of the moment to sign up for a class with Pascale Goldenberg that came across my way unexpectedly. Of course, by the time that it actually came around, it didn’t fit in well at all amongst all the things that have been going on – but because it had been paid for I went nevertheless. And I am glad I did.

I had already taken a class with her about ten years ago and knew that she is good for getting one’s creative mind moving in new directions. Ever since that class I have been a hoarder of anything larger than a square inch. (Although a few months ago I did finally throw out the cut offs of threads which I had been sorting by color in jam glasses.) So packing was easy - all my boxes of assorted scraps, with a few strips thrown in as well.

Pascale uses leftovers of all kinds, and she gets them from tailors and various other places. So her work looks decidedly different from any other patchwork, already because she uses other fabrics. Add to that her creativity...

Pascale Goldenberg,
explaining how to treat pieces of fabric
before using them in patchwork weaving

This class that I signed up for is called “Patchwork Weaving”.

We started off with a “straight” weaving exercise - no two pieces were allowed to be alike either in fabric or in ways how they had been treated prior to using.

Then we were supposed to get more complicated by including round or awkwardly cut strips.

And finally we were supposed to weave something which was then meant to be cut up again to be included in another design. I wasn’t allowed to cut this one up, though, I have to repeat the exercise for homework...

It was great to be a student again. And this class may well enter into my attempts at working smaller pieces. I am curious myself to see how.