Featured.

 Imagine my pleasant surprise this morning when I opened the local newspaper and saw this:

 

I had somehow known that City Hall was going to prepare an updated version of the leaflet that was a ‘Guide to artworks in V.’ (which I, actually, have never seen), but I didn’t know when it would happen. My pleasure increased when I saw that a paragraph specifically mentioned my quilt that I made during the art symposium in what seems almost dozens of years ago. It is referred to as a piece of art that is demonstrating a special connection to the city by using citizens' handwritings in their languages of origin.

 

The quilt has been up on the wall of the entrance area of the town music school for over a year now, but because of Covid there never was any kind of ceremony on the occasion of it being installed, and, even more disappointing, the building is still closed to the general public: music students have to wait outside the entrance, get picked up by their teacher, and nobody else is permitted access to the building. So it was nice to see this first introduction of the quilt to the public this morning. With a photo! 

I could not get hold of a copy of this new leaflet, however, as they are not displayed publically in the town hall, the person responsible for culture wasn’t in her office and the substitute announced on the door had no clue. I will try again some other day. But there is a pdf-download option here.

Textile Art Symposium, 2nd day (updated with pictures)

On Sunday evening I met Judith at the station and took her to the hotel we are staying at in town, and Angelika, the third artist participating in the symposium arrived a little later, so we spent the evening getting acquainted. I realized that I was pretty lucky because I knew the entire setup from earlier symposiums that I had witnessed. The two of them were a bit nervous, which I did not feel like at all. So much so not nervous, that I really only started packing in the evening after I had returned from the dinner we had together. All three of us admitted to the others that we were a bit scared we might not finish during the week and that we had worked ahead to a certain degree. What a relief to hear that I was not alone in that!

On Monday morning we started setting up the tent and work began before noon.

Enough table room, my machine, additional light. Judith Siedensberger's
design sketches on the board in the back right.

Judith at work.

 I did go home for lunch because my husband was out of town and I wanted my son to have company when he came home from school. During the meal he asked me why I had to go and move into the hotel for the week? Would I not rather have slept at home? I said I wanted to be where the others were staying, to join their conversations over the meals, and be out of the family obligations. But, did I have to pay for the hotel? When I denied that he said he said well, then it’s not quite so bad… I was touched that he had mentioned it. Shows that mother out of the house is felt as not ordinary in some way or other. I do agree it is a pretty funny situation to be staying in a hotel which is about the same distance away from the tent where we set up our studio as our house proper, only that the tent is sort of in the middle between the two. And being so close to home gives you the feeling that you can always go and get something in case you’d forgotten to pack it… But I really did want to do it that way because otherwise I would be falling back into doing housework or whatever. Just wish the food were a bit better…

So work has been going well. Yesterday was pretty warm in the tent and although we haven’t put it to use yet I was glad I had packed a small ventilator, just in case. Today it was cooler, even a thunderstorm came through in the late afternoon, which is when I packed up everything for the day to cut off electricity, a good twenty minutes earlier than I had wanted to. 

I’d had some thread- and tension issues in the afternoon, the thread kept breaking while I was stitching Article 20 in Hungarian. As it had not mucked up at all, same thread, this morning when I was doing Article 15 in Portuguese I am dead certain it must be the Hungarian that is causing the problems… and had wanted to finish outlining Article 2 in Wolof before the night. That only got started, however, and it is where I will continue tomorrow. After that there is only one more article to stitch onto the fabric, then I can go (home) and dissolve the stabilizers, wash, dry and iron the top and baste it onto the batting and back fabric. I am planning to start serious quilting tomorrow afternoon. I am managing pretty well with the machine, but I do miss my big working table at home where the machine is level with the table top and the work piece doesn’t get caught on the tray table all the time… I am spoilt with that!

We don’t talk a whole lot but it has been fun working alongside the other two. We have had a few visitors already and most likely the number are going to increase over the next few days.

Falling in love

The four days of show in Villefranche-sur-Saône were interesting, but long hours, and overall very exhausting. Trying to talk French after having studied for my Spanish exam (and there weren’t a lot of visitors who could speak anything else but French) was a challenge, but I managed. (Of course, in yesterday’s Spanish lesson I was again using French words when the Spanish wouldn’t pop up…)

I split up the return drive spending a night in Memmingen, a city I was really only aware of from a severe court case many years ago that made it into the nation’s newspapers and that has always been a scar on my image of Bavaria. So much so that I never thought about going to look at the town - it does have a really pretty old town and is very picturesque. 

So after a really tiring week - two days of driving, four days of show, two days of driving - I immediately went back to two days of teaching. But now my class in doing two weeks of practicum and I am ‘on vacation’. Well - not really, except for the fact that on Thursday I just needed to hang out, not do much, catch my breath. But all week I have also been working on preparations for the textile art symposium. I am one by one securing handwritten versions of some of the articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that I am using as the message for the quilt I want to make. Here is my student Puji writing Article No. in Thai, which really is a fantastic script. 

At first I let the writers chose themselves, but now that a number of articles already have been taken it is fun to consider which person or which language is the right one at this stage for a particular language. For example, I chose my Hungarian-born colleague to write the article on the right for demonstrations and expression of opinion on Hungarian. She loved that, too.

Of course, my son’s motivation for choosing Article No. 6 was completely different - he looked for brevity to get it over with quickly. But I love and appreciate the fact that he was willing to write it, after all he is not 2½ years old any more as he was when I started using his drawings as inspiration for the series ‘Play of Lines’ and could have said ‘forget it’…

Yesterday I started stitching the intermediate layer after some procrastination, which resulted in some changes of design and orientation. 

This is the plan - but plans are there to be modified...

And as I am stitching some of the what I consider key phrases of the preamble, I am beginning to really fall in love with these words.  

I have always held a very very high appreciation for this Declaration, but as I am repeating these phrases on the fabric, they resound within me, it is amazing:

Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all the members of the human family.

• Freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want.
• Human rights should be protected by the rule of law.
• Dignity and worth of the human person.
• Equal rights of men and women.

What a powerful message. Perhaps it will be heard after all, some day…

Time flies like an arrow, and fruit flies like a banana...

That is one of the jokes I used to hear from my boss in former times, when I was still working as a linguist at the university... Sometimes it would be abbreviated to "Time flies like a banana", and then what? I knew it had been a while since I'd written my last post, but two weeks... has it really been that long? What have I been doing with myself?
I can assure you I have been busy. And I have been quilting. And dyeing. And teaching. And trying to figure out an almost twelve-year-old's mind... And not taking the time to sit down for the blog, obviously.

I have been working on a quilt for the German Patchwork Guild's AGM, coming up in June, for an exhibition of the members of the board in which they are supposed to prove that they can, indeed, quilt. This exhibition was initiated by our president Barbara after she had been hearing comments from quilt guild members that they thought the members of the board weren't really quilting anymore, just trying to make themselves important. For a while I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but because we had a prescribed size for which I could not pull out a quilt from my stack, I had to make something new. Plus I had the ambition to show something new. But it took a while until I had an idea. Now it is finished except for a few little stitchy touches.

text messages 11: yes, I can artquilt

And I am already working on the next piece in the series, text messages 12. That one, however, I plan to enter in the SAQA regional exhibition Made in Europe 2, for which the entry process opened today, so I won't post a picture here yet.

I have been doing longarm comissions, here is a detail of one of them.

I like quilting traditional quilts with the longarm machine. It is relaxing!

When I was taking off a few strands from a vest which just didn't please me as part of the design, I started thinking whether these could perhaps be useful in the 70,273 project.

But I admit that not much has happened in that direction beyond the thought.
Then I spent days frantically trying to catch up with the dyeing of my March-collection. The shipment of fabrics had been seriously delayed, by several weeks, and I only managed to ship the finished collection three weeks into April, when usually I try to get it out by the end of the month.

Now I am getting ready to go to Nadelwelt in Karlsruhe for the weekend.

In any case - I am still alive. And looking forward to spending my birthday on the road going to Karlsruhe, and then setting up the stand...

Small business Saturday

For quite a while already have I been following Margaret Cooter’s blog by e-mail notification. Her frequency of posts is intimidating for anybody who is a blogger, because one starts to wonder where she finds the time to write so many posts, and produce her books, sewing kits, drawings, take photos , and read (and share) poetry (and information on the respective poets) as well...

And inbetween she is always good for wonderful and interesting bits and pieces of information. Such as this most delicious recipe for lemon squares which I had printed out in March right away and finally have tried recently and found to be of a highly disappearing nature. If they hadn't disappeared so quickly, I might even have been able to take a picture.

Recently she wrote about the “Small business Saturday” - that is today - in England.

The rules for eligibility (as shamelessly copied from Margaret’s blog) read as follows:

ELIGIBILITY
We founded the Campaign to promote and support small businesses; accordingly, you should only download and use the Marketing Materials if you fall within these criteria:
 Your turnover (for all outlets and other business locations within the UK) for the 2012 calendar year must have been ten million pounds (£10,000,000) or less·
 You must not be:·
o involved as a principal course of business in the manufacture, promotion or sale of pornography, sexual aids, firearms or other weapons
o involved with the promotion or advocacy of any sensitive or controversial topic, or otherwise participate in activities that we determine to be inconsistent with our values.

So here I am – my turnover in 2012 was far below ten million pounds, even if converted into Euros, I am not involved in the manufacture, promotion or sale of pornography or weapons (although I suspect you could use a quilt to suffocate somebody if you tried really hard – but I would plead for ‘misuse of object’ in court in a situation like that), and I try to stay away from controversial topics on the blog (although I sometimes do feel a growing urge to start saying something about politics and humans treat each other and the planet). And in German tax rules I am even registered as a ‘small business’.

I even have several ideas how you could support me. You could either

• buy a quilt (here is the gallery, more pictures on  request) – or
• buy some fabric (by the yard here) – or
• hire me as a workshop instructor – or
• offer me a chance to exhibit my quilts.
• Or subscribe to my fabric club – for which there is a special offer up, starting today, Saturday 7^th, and valid until the Saturday after next, i.e. 21^st, 2013.

This is the offer:

Sign a subscription for my fabric club (conditions for subscription in English can be found here and a printout of the order form is possible here, and after the completion of the first year you will receive the January-2015-shipment either

• for free (if you sign up for Fat Quarters), or
• at half price (if you sign up for half metres or metres),

regardless whether you decide to discontinue the subscription or to keep going.

Are you ready? 

Support this small business, and give yourself a little Christmas treat that will last more than a whole year!