After too long a time

 I returned to my sewing machine last week.

Because of family reasons I had not been near it for more than six weeks, and felt rather deprived. I had fun at the Patchwork Gilde’s annual event, which took place after my last post.

Susan Vogel and I showing off our certificates for 
presenting exhibitions at the AGM-weekend. Susan 
was responsible for the EQA Round Bobbins (I loved her husband's 
wonderful accompaniment of the event with his didgeridoo 
playing), and I took care of the EQA Contrast Challenge.

 

The Round Bobbins, quite an impressive exhibition in real life!

I did teach a 3-hour workshop on improvisation, which made me 
rather nervous in advance, partly because three hours is just 
too short to get people into an improvising mood. But once I got going, it was fun.

I had knitted a sweater in the meantime, as part of a knit-along, and I finished only a few days after the ‘official’ end date, which is quite astonishing for me as I tend to be not-good-at-all with these x-alongs. With this one, I had chosen a (rather expensive) yarn from my stash with a high linen-component and found quite a lot of tiny fiber pieces in the yarn that made me suspicious whether they would bother me when wearing it, so I spent A LOT! OF! TIME! Picking out those pieces, which, of course, slowed down my process considerably. 

 

I was actually happy with the result, and I had even sort-of-liked the way the instructions were written, at least to me they did not seem quite so clumsy as many other written instructions, and I thought I might knit another sweater after that mode again at a later point in time. 

 

I really liked the combination of the light green and the variegated red...

Unfortunately, because the linen yarn had not been enough and I had supplemented it with a silk yarn from my stash (from India – should have made me suspicious!), which really enhanced the outcome, danger was lurking that I did not suspect. Having been a dyer I should have known… The sweater came out of the first wash completely ruined because the read had run and turned the light green into an unpleasant brown. Home remedies to take out the discoloration exacerbated the catastrophe and I threw the sweater into the bin. That’s a way of de-stashing, too. Threw away the remaining skein of the red yarn as well.

 

The green had lost its lustre completely after the first wash, and things 
got even worse after I tried home-remedies against discoloration.

Upon my arrival at my husband’s place last week I first put the sleeve on my contribution to the EQA-challenge “Insects” that will be shown in Ste. Marie-aux-Mines. Being the one who organizes the transport I am in a fortunate position that I can still finish my piece even after the deadline has passed…

"Picasso Beetle in Yellow", 35x35cm, 2026.

 

Then I picked up the beginnings of my third piece in the Femina series for 20 Perspectives, which would have been ‘due’ on the day of my return. It was completed yesterdaymorning, and you can read a little bit about it here. (I did sleep on it for another night and changed something this morning.) I am not sure whether I am really happy with it, so it is more of a chore finished. Which is a pity as I was happy enough with the first two pieces in the series. But I really struggled with this one, and I feel I have been struggling with my quilting for a while now, so I need to get going with getting my creative juices flowing again.

I have decided to start a piece for the juried EQA exhibition “Desire” for February and concentrate on getting that finished, perhaps this will help get me back on track.

"Here comes the sun!"

 It is my turn today to be featured as the week's supplyer of the SAQA Europe and Middle East's group picture on facebook and Instagram. 

I had been scheduled for this date for a long time, and for almost that whole time I had thought I would be posting the picture of my quilt that is in the Forced to Flee exhibit, currently traveling with SAQA (and which will next be shown at Bedford Gallery @ the Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, California: February 26 - June 19, 2022). But on the past Monday, when I joined the SAQA regional zoom meeting after not having been able to for a couple of times, and they were talking about music in quilts, how music affects us in our quilting, the importance of music for our quilting, I realized that I had a rather musical quilt in the backdrop. It has relatively recently come home from traveling with an exhibition organized by France Patchwork, and I realized that it would be a perfect candidate for the group picture. So I changed my mind, and because I hadn't sent anything to Birgit Schüller yet, it was easy. Then I realized that I had not even posted anything about this quilt on the blog either, although it is part of my series text messages (which currently gives me a headache because I have lost count of how many quilts I have made, but that is another story). This must have happened because I made it in a very brief period of time, just before the deadline. Then it was accepted quickly, gone right away, and I had not even had time to get a proper photo. 

So here is a little bit of introduction to the quilt. It got started by coincicdence. I saw France Patchwork's challenge fabric at Ste. Marie-aux-Mines: a piece of linen, with a good amount of yellow. Any kind of yellow gets me hooked, and this was very fine linen. But when I asked whether I could buy a piece Catherine Bonte just gave it to me, between EQA representatives, I guess, and said "but you do have to enter!" Title of the challenge: Do Ré Mi Lin. Part of the musical scale, with a slur into fabric, should be easy. Plenty of time, the winter passes, spring rolls around, and here I am, haven't even started on the piece. But suddenly it all came together. I had this cut out sun lying around, 

 

which came from some other piece I was making, and definitely did not want it to go to waste. Sun always goes with yellow, I have this thing with light, I love music, and when you talk about sun and music you just have to think about the Beatles' song "Here comes the sun" (composed by George Harrison), wouldn't you agree? I know other poems and lyrics on the topic of the sun, one of my absolute favorite songs is a Swedish folk song about a sunset on Kajsa's bank on the lake, 

 

a few lines from Ingeborg Bachmann, something Spanish, 

 

and a French chancon. A couple of Afghanistan embroideries from the Guldusi project went in as well,

 

and it all just came together as text messages 20.

Can't believe I didn't write about this one - it was such a happy making, so easy and flow like. If all quilt making was like this, and the sun were out ...