Re-Evaluating Brown

This week has seen the beginning of my dyeing activities for this month’s fabric selection. Because it has been an emotionally very intensive week with the refugee class, only two of the six colours have been dyed yet, none of them has been ironed … but I think it will be a nice colour selection. Which is a bit funny now, because this selection is one that I have been putting off for a while, at least since July, which was the first time I thought that it was about time for making another selection of browns. Not that there hasn’t been one done before, but it had been a while ago. It will be a combination of shades of different browns.

In my own stash, and in the colours I have on offer at the stand, I am never terribly well-stocked in shades of brown. I don’t like brown. Despite the fact that I used to have hair of a very dark and rich brown, and I have always liked my hair - it never led to a situation that would let me feel something like appreciation for the colour brown as such. Brown for me was always tainted, it was ‘the colour of the Nazis’. When I was still buying fabric in fabric stores I would always pass by the brown section. It just never occurred to me that one would want to buy a piece of brown fabric. I do have a brown leather jacket, and I have had that for many many years, but I bought it for the fact that it was less than half price, very large, and it just came at the right time. Never have I felt a particular appreciation for its colour.

When I started dyeing my own fabrics, this changed a little, and I learned to appreciate brown results of my own dyeing activites, especially when they had turned out not too uniform, but were rather displaying a bit of variation.

What I could appreciate about the beauty of hand-dyed browns was their hand-dyed characteristics, I was happy to sell them, and even strive to have an almost decent selection on offer. But I would still not have been very likely to try to actually use a shade of brown in a quilt unless I was forced to. Recent conversations with some of the students in class, talking about colours, preferences, and feelings associated with particular colours in their home countries, however, has given my unappreciative opinion about brown a bit of a shake-up. The pride of the West-Africans about their skin colour, the way they dress and are frequently very positive about brown has given me a new outlook on the possibilities of combining brown with other colours. I would probably still not (yet) use it much for any quilt for myself. But I could well imagine using it in special combinations with other colours, should somebody want that for themselves. It’s amazing how this little bit of teaching German as a foreign language is affecting my personal outlook on life, and obviously it is starting to take an influence on my art making as well. No matter how emotionally draining the refugees’ situation is, and how dispiriting my lack of power to take any influence in that can be - being in personal contact with this special group of people is probably much more enriching for me than I could ever give them back by telling them something about verb conjugations or passive constructions.

Munich, twice

Sometimes it takes months before I get a chance to go to Munich. Last week I got to go twice.
On Tuesday, I went to take down the International Threads' exhibition at Quilt et Textilkunst Gallery. Barbara was working, so I had to do it alone - with a little help from Christine Köhne for the four larger quilts that were up over the stairway. But taking down an exhibition is always so much faster than putting it up. Yet taking down an exhibition without Barbara is a lot less fun than putting it up with her... In any case, I had the chance to get another shot of Shapes 26 where the reflecting effect is actually visible - when there are no real lights around.

And then I found myself outside the store and gallery again, with a complete exhibition packed into two moving boxes, and pushing it back to the station.

Of course, the train was late, and I got back an hour later than could have been.
And then on Thursday another trip to Munich. This time together with my German class of refugees: the entire class went to visit the Bavarian Parliament, the Landtag, where we had been invited by a local representative to follow the debate of a new law for integration. Not only did we get to listen to the first few hours of the debate (which in the end lasted until five thirty in the morning before the final vote), but we were also shown around the building and met with some other politicians.

I had never been to the Landtag before, so it was an interesting and new experience for me, too.

Earlier in the week I had sent out the November selection of the fabric club. However, I have not taken a photo of the color range yet, so all I can show here is the stack of packages before shipping.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to post a photo of the color range.

November, and what could have been....

It is November, and that is never a really good month for me. Until this past week this year’s November-weather hadn’t been as terrible as it can be, we actually had days of sunshine, some cold, some not too cold, and some were even beautiful and sunny. Perhaps after a bit of early morning fog, just by the river. 

Then this past week was terrible and very depressing, but today is nice again, any half glimpse of sunshine is so welcome! 

 I just wish I could live in a country that has a different weather scheme.

Actually, for a few days during the week before last and last week it looked as if this dream might come true.

My husband suddenly started talking about an open position in Bogotá, Columbia, and whether I could possibly consider living there. We started a bit of internet research about the city, the conditions, school options for my son, and a basketball club and began to like the idea. I thought through how much of a change it would mean, all the things I would have to give up, and what it would mean to embark on such an adventure, moving to another country. At least I would have had a head-start on my husband as I have already been studying Spanish. Can’t say that I am anywhere near fluid, basically it is still in the stages where I always feel the incompetence, especially in listening und understanding when my teacher talks to me - she has by now changed into normal conversational speed, and she is not a small talker. And I should study my vocabulary on a more regular basis… But it’s good enough to say, yes, that’s an adventure I can face, and I wouldn’t have to start from scratch.

So there was the smell of adventure in the air, a possibility for a total change. Until my husband talked to the organizers of the whole thing, found out about conditions that applied first to his own application, and the necessary preliminaries, and to me, and everything fell to pieces. It  would have been virtually impossible to get a work permit for me, not even to talk about the things on his side. And although I would have been willing to give up all the things here for an adventure and new experience, I am not willing to do that to be damned to inactivity in terms of working/earning money. And we would have needed a second income to supplement what he would be making, as additional costs would apply. So that was that. Not possible, and a bit of a disappointment, too. Not that Columbia had been on the top of my personal list of countries I could well imagine living in before this discussion, in fact, it had not even been listed. But it was a teaser, very welcome, enticing. Now November is even grayer than before, if there is such a thing as a comparative of gray!

During the week I finished writing my article for the Patchwork Professional magazine and sent it off half an hour ago. 
I also started getting ready for the possibility of snow, and soaked some pieces of fabric in soda ash. After all, the article in the magazine is on how to make good use of special effect fabrics like snow-dyed fabrics, I might as well be prepared and have new ones on offer.

 

Not much sewing went on, as I was also dyeing the next selection of the fabric club ‘on the side’. Now I have four of the six colours sitting in the basement, waiting to be ironed. 

One of the least liked parts of the whole process, I admit. I’ll just have to split it up a bit - iron one section, start dyeing colours no. 5 and 6, iron the next one… A busy rest of the Sunday still ahead of me. And by the time I finish writing this, the sky has clouded up again, no more glimpses of sunshine. Might just as well hide in the basement!

My newest quest

The fabric club has been going for five years now. Sometime last summer I ran out of the tissue paper I had been using for wrapping the selections before putting them into the envelopes to be shipped. I was using that because it was there – I had at some point bought it to wrap quilts in, which I found rather tedious, though, because the sheets were smaller than most of my quilts and basically I had turned to making fabric bags for the quilts. After I had run out of those tissue papers, I kept thinking I needed to get some additional protective wrapping, but I was busy with the refugees, sometimes low on money – I was putting it off. So I took an easy way out and sent the selections in the plastic bags which up til then I had only been using for the packages to be sold at market. One friend asked me whether that was going to stay like that... no, it wasn’t, but then I went to New Zealand, I was stressed out, and I just did not have the leisure and nerve to sit down and look for a new solution.

After returning, I tried to find a good deal on bags made from recycled newspapers, but wasn’t successful (yet).

Then I read an article about a blogger in Germany, and heard about her on the radio, who is trying hard and – according to the marketing – successfully to live a life without plastic. I bought her book (the title translates as ‘Better living without plastic’) and, as much as I love her approach, I realized that although it is a very worthy cause, it is very difficult to follow through. Try to go shopping without buying anything in plastic – impossible! Even in an organic store. And out here in the country there is no such thing as one of the obviously coming shops for 'shopping without plastic'. What is worse in terms of effects on the climate change and environmental pollution – driving 60 miles to Munich in order to get to such a store (time, energy, pollution, cost!) or buying a packet of something sealed in plastic?

I have long since stopped taking plastic bags in supermarkets (we don’t have the big brown paper bags as they do in the US), I always carry a little bag or basket with me, and I have even had a little bit of success in driving the point home with my husband.

So I resolved that I would try hard(er), but not stress myself about it too much: be aware, look for options, but don’t stress myself or fret if it’s not possible.

What I have done is I sewed a few reusable see-through bags (organza) for packing fruit and other loose items which I take with me when I go shopping. They prevent apples from rolling around, they are washable, and they last much longer than any plastic bag which, of course, could be reused as well. Organza rather than any other piece of ordinary fabric so that the cashier can see what's inside, and doesn't get upset.

They make a good present, too. I 'wrapped' a present for my friend into one of these bags a couple of days ago, so that made two presents for her! 

I’m also thinking about designs for these reusing scraps, but that is still in the very beginning.

And on Friday I finally sat down and ordered my paper bags for the coming fabric club selections. 

Benefit Auction Piece finished

This past week I put the finishing touches onto my donation for SAQA's annual Benefit Auction. Now all it needs is the sign with the title, and then it can go into the mail.

Play of Lines XXXIX

Yesterday I spent all day dyeing the next fabric club. It's the first time I've done all of it in one day. Though, to be honest, the washing and ironing is still going on today (and tomorrow). I've been going up and down into the cellar quite a bit as we have only that one washing machine...

5-year-anniverary special for new subscribers to the fabric club!

Almost five years ago I shipped the first collection of the fabric club to my first customers. By now there have been 33 different collections, and you can find somewhere between 12 and 14 boxes of different fabrics in my ‚warehouse’. Next week my son and I are going to take the end-of-year-inventory to find out how much there really is!

I still enjoy taking the fabrics to market, and it is still a lot of fun to decide which colours are going to be featured in the next collection.

As far as I can tell, no same colours have been included in a collection twice, but there has always been a difference in value or hue. After all, I am keeping track of the recipes I use, and keeping a swatch book with a piece of every colour ever included in a collection.

Now, after these first 5 years, a special offer is out, valid for any for new subscriptions that reach me between now and January 9th, 2016:

Sign up for a full subscription (the conditions are stated here, http://www.justcolours.de/infoseite.php and a sign-up sheet can be found here),

and, together with your first shipment, you will receive a piece of the soon-to-be-dyed anniversary-colour,

and another piece of fabric ranging from somewhere between 30 to 40 cm.

Please note that this offer is valid only for new sign-ups before and up to January 9^th, 2016, and only for full subscriptions. ‘Light’ subscriptions do not qualify.

And: the colours of the January-collection have already been decided on!

Coming back home, slowly...

I have been home for ten days now, and it’s not been an easy time. Re-adjusting to European time was particularly difficult, the weather has not been overly favorable (although we did have a few nice and sunny days) 

This picture was actually taken in the sunshine...  

– and all in all I have not really found my bearings yet.

I had ‘worked ahead’ before leaving, dyeing all the fabrics for the November fabric club shipment, which was due right after my return. I still had to cut the pieces, pack and ship them, but that was feasible even through the haze of jetlag, even after the second night when I woke up just after midnight, and could not go back to sleep again at all.

November 2015 Fabric Club selection

Now I’m fiddling in the studio, getting to know the transformed machine that waited for me upon my return. My Bernina is now a 770, and I hope with this one I will again become a satisfied user of that brand.

The first thing I made was a bag from a piece of fabric which my son once had insisted I buy ‘for him to make something with’ when I had made the mistake of taking him with me to visit a fabric store. In a weak moment I had geven in, expecting full well that he would probably never really do something with it, although we did try to start making a bag when we got home back then. He quickly lost interest when things didn’t turn out so easy as he had expected, and the fabric had been sitting there for ages. My husband has claimed the bag for himself, promising he won’t bring home plastic carrier bags anymore. The remaining piece of fabric was turned into a pillow case for the son, so both male members of the family have received their share of the fabric, and the first attempts with the new machine.

I am working on small collages on the completion of which I am way behind :

And I have tried to rescue a top which had undergone some accidental nuno felting right before I left, when I dumped the scrap quilt into the washing machine, not remembering that it had a wool batting inside. I’ve been picking the layers apart – each of which will be reusable. They just won’t go well together anymore. I’m planning to add to the top by an additional row each in the vertical and horizontal columns. The now nicely felted wool batting will eventually become the warm and cosy heart of some other scrap quilt. And the rear piece of fabric will just have to wait its turn...

I am also sorting through my boxes, choosing which fabrics to set aside for another ‘fabric give away party’ tomorrow night. Forty boxes is just a few too many to be harboring on the shelves all the time - definitely much more than I will ever be able to use up in my entire life-time! -  and the local patchwork group will be given a surprise. 

Hoping to add at least two more boxes
to this stack before tomorrow night!