Imagine…

 … you come home from a couple of days of a workshop aka retreat, after which you went to see and support your aging mother after heart surgery for a few days, and when unpacking the car, you realize that the foot pedal for your sewing machine has gone missing. You call the location where the workshop took place, they haven’t found anything. You make an inquest in the group of attendees, nobody has seen anything. You go through all the boxes you had with you, nothing in there. You check the case for the sewing machine into which the pedal would naturally and instinctively be packed at the end of the days for the sixth or seventh time and it still hasn’t materialized there. You go back to the car and check under the seats, in the luggage compartment (and that’s only a small car, it couldn’t really hide anywhere). Nothing.

You have a wonderfully uninterrupted full week of empty days ahead of you and wanted to get started on at least two projects that are looming with a deadline, one more urgent than the other. The spare machine is located in your other abode 600 km away.

The machine is waiting, yes, in this setup the enclosure is not there yet,
because it will be easier to attach the cords once the pedal will have arrived... 

You call a sewing machine dealer and order a new pedal, click on ‘immediate money transfer’ (which costs an additional fee with the bank) when making your payment, you had the affirmation that the dealer would ‘send as soon as payment comes in’ (and payment should have been visible on their account within minutes), but it takes three days for them to acknowledge payment was received, now they would ‘send quickly’. That was three days ago, today’s post is in and did not include that parcel. There isn’t a whole lot left of that full week to get started on those two projects by now.

Meanwhile, you kept yourself busy hand-stitching more French Knots on a piece you’ve been working on, but to determine how many knots exactly still need to be added you do need to start on the binding at the top because only then will you know how far down from the top edge you will need to stitch. Which can only happen with a sewing machine…

French Knots on "The Essence Behind the Words" for the
"Femina" challenge of 20 Perspectives

Other things you can occupy yourself with is starting to put together a huge piece of hexagons made from 1-inch-diamonds that you started more than 3 years ago and which had progressed to a point where you only need to make about 10 more of those hexagons to have enough, 

and of course you keep re-arranging some, exchanging a couple with each other, and actually joined some already. 

Nice surprise that the appearance of the hexagons changes considerable when they are joined, the background of the fabric they have been pinned onto disappears and they blend together somewhat. So that’s a good result of the week.

Hoping the foot pedal will arrive tomorrow? Keep your fingers crossed for me, please! 

At least the Choir of Angels has been out for a few weeks already, to be honest, since I had to go up to the attic to find a quilt which was supposed to go to an exhibition in the US and would have found a clandestine carrier to evade customs, but which is still missing in action. Who know when that will resurface - before or only after the next move?

I may have to purchase a couple more musicians before Christmas to give myself a shopping expierence gratification!

 

Reichstag, Wrapped, or chances missed...

It was 30 years ago that Jeanne-Claude and Christo started wrapping the Reichstag building in Berlin, after many years of planning and a long discussion in Germany, including a debate in parliament. At that time, the representatives were still convening in Bonn, the move to the newly (re)declared capitol Berlin had not taken place and refurbishing of the Reichstag building, which had been sitting unused in the middle of borderline country for the years of existence of the GDR had not yet begun. I really wanted to go and see that, after the wrapping was done. I would have taken the train, joined the crowd, taken a sleeping bag and some warm clothes and somehow passed the night and then taken a train back home the next day. I am not a night person at all, and it would have been neck-braking for me, would have set me ‘out of service’ for a few days. I thought it was such a great project.

However – I was in love with a Greek at that time, he thought it was a highly stupid thing to do, both, the wrapping as such and the visit on my part, he was visiting from the States for a few weeks, he did not want to go and refused to spend two days on his own or visit other friends, and I was insecure enough to let him talk me out of that adventure. (I really should have understood at that point, if he couldn’t go along with me on this, he was not the right person to be together with, but it took me a bit more time before I finally realized how little respect he had for me.) Let me tell you – I have regretted that decision to not go see the wrapping ever since. It’s a burning hole in my personal history.

Next attempt was the “Magic of Trees” exhibit of wrapped trees at the Fondation Beyeler inBasel, Switzerland. A friend lived a mere 15 minute walk away from the museum, the train tickets had been bought, I wanted to visit on the last scheduled weekend of the exhibition.

The wrapping had to be taken down a week earlier than planned because the leaves had started falling earlier than expected and it was feared that the weight within the translucent wrapping would damage the trees. I did visit the friend, but I had missed another chance at seeing an exhibition of Jeanne Claude and Christo.

I did get to see the installation in the Oberhausen gasometer, and I was determined to and did go to see the wrapped Arc de Triomphe, as I have written about a few years ago.

But when I heard last week that a light installation on behalf of the 30^th anniversary of the wrapping of the Reichstag is taking place is Berlin until June 20^th, I got itchy. 

 

I thought I would be passing by Berlin in the car to go see my husband – how would it be possible to perhaps fit this in…? On Thursday afternoon I called three people, every single one of my contacts in Berlin whom I felt comfortable enough about to ask if I could spend a night on very short notice. Every single one was either going out of town for the weekend or had visitors that Friday night. Because we have just bought a house and need to be very prudent about finances, staying in a hotel was out of the question. Eventually, I decided to forego the light installation. I tell myself it may be an interesting event in itself, and perhaps it may indeed be illusionary enough to give you the impression of looking at the wrapped Reichstag. But I know watching an ABBA concert performed by avatars is not going to be the same thing as a real concert with the real people on stage and therefore would never pay for a ticket for that, this is a similar situation of creating an illusion - so I probably would not be entirely happy looking at the light installation. A missed chance from 30 years ago just can’t be righted, I have to live with that and look at the picture on the wall that we have. And I do have the memories of a wonderful trip to Paris with my son.

“What advice to you have for younger women?” is one of the questions Sam Baker asks everyone of her guest on her podcast. Mine here? If you really want to do something, don’t let anybody who is not burning for it as ferociously as you are talk you out of it. (And I did go to New Zealand for my bike trip after breaking up with that boyfriend, another thing he had considered absolutely unnecessary. But that’s a different story.)

Stitching? I am spending hours seed stitching the background of the Blue NuDenim…

 

To be continued... 

Vacation time

 My family is spending 2 weeks on Fuerteventura, one of the Canary islands.

I have been here before, but it is the first time for my  It's cooler here than in Germany right now. The beach is lovely. The water has perfect swimming temperature.

  It is very relaxing.

I was excited about the possibility  to see the Supermoon, but on the night of the full  moon it was a bit cloudy on the horizon. So this picture from the evening before must suffice, it's pretty impressive as such, I think.

I have seen my first pomegranate tree today.

And I saw gorgeous displays of fish in the supermarket yesterday, 

which almost made me want we were staying in an apartment where we could do our own cooking. But only almost, I am quite happy I don't have to cook. Tonight's paella at the restaurant was delicious!

I brought my temperature quilt for handstitching, narrowed down to 4 months.

And I am making progress.

But posting via the tablet is rather tedious... this is not going to be a long post!

Temperature Quilt, 2nd attempt

 

For the first week in September I had the house all to myself, and at some point I developed a stage of beginning Blues. Couldn’t go anywhere because of the strike on German trains, my husband and son were away with the car, longish distance biking still not possible due to the wrist, and no other activities in the exercise realm either. It was a bit weird – because during lockdown times I had sometimes thought it might have been slightly easier if I had been in lockdown by myself, now the guys were out of the house and I still wasn’t really content. Of course, it wasn’t lockdown, travel would have been possible in principle, only I was not physically able to go anywhere, nor technically equipped to do something interesting. I didn’t mind being by myself, I can do that very well, but I did mind being scooped up in the house despite without the real possibility to move about.

I figured sitting down with sewing was the most helpful remedy and went upstairs to work on my scrap project, which had already progressed a bit since the former post about it. 

 

There is more to the right, just not shown in the picture.

After just a few minutes, however, I got very itchy because we were finally having a few nice and sunny days and I really wanted to sit outside. I searched (and relatively quickly found) my temperature quilt project, 2^nd attempt. I had started that earlier in the year but put it on hold when I realized how big it was going to be as I had not really calculated what the chosen block size would add up to. It would have been over 7’ in height, and that was just too overwhelmingly large. When I reported my dismay my good friend Kathy had suggested I scale down the block size, which was a wonderful idea but also meant I would have to take apart the entire first month which I had already assembled. Of course, I am glad I had assembled that first month and made it a vital part of the production process, because otherwise I would never have found out until much later that I was facing this serious size problem.

This temperature quilt is a hand sewing project, so sitting outside on the terrace was a perfect surrounding for taking it up again. 

 

I made new templates, which left the quarter circle at the same size but seriously shrunk the background. That meant I could take apart the first month in complete blocks, mark the background fabric smaller and sew it all back together. The work of one afternoon, and I got a few new blocks for the second month done in that sitting as well. 

 

Since then, several more afternoons on the terrace have followed. I take my box, sit in the shade on an umbrella, and stitch the individual blocks, assembling them right away in monthly strips. 

 

Orientation is determined by whether there was a rise or a drop in temperature, and depending on whether the difference is larger in the maximum temperature or the minimum temperature of the day. (Not fretting about it, because, strictly speaking, the four possible orientations don’t cover the entire range of possibilities that can come up.)

In this respect, of course, this temperature is not wildly original, there have already been many that did that. 

 

But I am juxtaposing two years: the past year, when I turned 55, and the year of my birth. The idea had started before I knew that 2020 would be the year of the pandemic and there wouldn’t be a whole lot of variation in terms of days out of town. (During my first attempt at a temperature quilt I had the trip to South Africa in August, which meant it could have been a difference in temperatures. Except for the fact that winter in South Africa is not much different in temperatures, at least maximum temperatures, than summer in Germany. Only the minimum was slightly cooler.) The difficult part in this concoction had been obtaining the data for my year of birth, which took several attempts, even almost led to the abortion of the project. But I managed to obtain those, and then the size hick-up... January 1965 will be followed by January 2020, February 1965 by February 2020, and so on.

Meanwhile, the project is growing. We have had a whole row of nice warm days, nicer and more consistent than most of the summer. While I have been stitching, there have been news that it was the summer with the most rainfall in Bavaria since who knows when, the hottest summer on average in Europe since the beginning of temperature records (except that it doesn’t feel like it for me), and the EU commission is passing a weird trade agreements which endanger the Amazon Forest, it’s been Earth Hour Day, hurricanes are sweeping the Southern US.

Tomato harvest has been pitiful due to the amount of rain we have had...

But sunsets have been very pretty lately.

 This quilt contains a lot of climate related thoughts indeed.

QuiltCon Together, at home by myself...

 Last weekend I spent a lot of hours on the computer. In a rather blues-ish period in the fall I had generously signed up for online classes with QuiltCon when the sign-up opened up for members of MQG, and now it was time to reap the harvest. Of course, my request for the entire QuiltCon days/weekend off had not been met quite to my desire, I still had to work on Friday. But I had Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday and Monday, and so I could spread out the classes that were on demand. Three lectures I had signed up for were 'live' (but pre-recorded nevertheless) and I did manage to catch those on time, and I had messed up a bit with remembering my schedule, so I attended the Q+A session for one class before I had actually done the class. I consider these mishaps a beginner's experiences because, after all, this was the first time I attended an online event like this. I have taught a couple of online classes myself, and I attended the online class by Phyllis Cullen and Cindy Richard on doing faces, but that is entirely different from a whole weekend packed with several classes. 

My laptop, my tea supply,
and my mess on my studio table in online mode..

 

To be honest, I was very disappointed with the lectures and classes I witnessed 'live'. Especially with the two lectures that were calles 'tours' of the International Quilt Museum. I just did not like her way of presenting (mostly herself instead of the quilts, I thought) and suffered through because I did want to see the quilts she had chosen. So I am not going to say more about those. One other lecture in my opinion by far did not supply what had been announced in the title, and with her I was also wondering, why on earth if you are prerecording this, do you have to have the situation that you are dealing with a scratchy throat, and have to keep commenting on this? Not going to mention that one in any more detail either.

The workshops I took, on the other hand, were very well presented, clearly structured, informative and fun.

Tara Faughnan on hand-sewing could not tell me anything new, but it was interesting to see how she explained how she arranges things, and this was only a short session. Matching the points in a six-pointed star is something I have done before, and I was not really careful enough when doing it alongside her explanation, so I had to take it out again afterwards.

The second attempt turned out better, and the few follow-ups I have done since then have been perfect (enough for mre) from the start.

The class on needle-turn appliqué I had signed up for because at that time I was writing an article on @nadiamamelouk and her self-developed style of needle-appliqué. I was considering trying it out and had wanted to compare, but when I tried Nadia's technique I soon found out that I absolutely love her results, but this is not for me. After 10 minutes into the workshop by Jen Kingswell I knew she wasn't going to change my mind about this, and although I would have enjoyed listening to her Australian English for a while I decided not to finish the entire workshop. 

The class by Sylvia Schaefer on "Designing with Negative Space" was the one where I attended the Q+A session first, before the class. Which is not really a smart way to do it, I completely agree with you on this one. Because it kicks you out of being a valuable participant in the questioning part. I wasn't happy with the Q+A session, and in a way I had the impression that I would have wanted more 'meat' in her answers, I would have liked her to make a better prepared impression. but then I wasn't well prepared myself, and I guess I can't really critcize her then. The workshop in itself was very good, though. Well structured, interesting examples for her list of various means of arriving at a 'negative space' for a modern quilt design, and I learned a lot from her.

But the highlight in classes, for me, were the two classes on EQ8 that I took with Cheryl Brickney, an introduction, and 'alternative grids'. An engineer by training, and abviously very versatile with this program, she had a completely structured way of presenting the program, walking us through the various worktables, repeating steps she had just taken...

 

I ended up with not very impressive in itself beginner's designs, but nevertheless I was impressed with how quickly I had understood what can be done (well, at least a little bit understood) where I had been pretty much at a loss when trying to find it out by myself.

Will I use this software to design quilts? I don't know, because it is absolutely not my way of working with a pre-drafted design, simply 'reproducing' a pattern like that in fabric when I have already seen it on the screen is not tempting for me. But I will certainly play around with the program a bit, see where it takes me, what options pop up, for example with the 'randomizing' function in terms of color choices.

Did I enjoy this experience of participating in an online event? Yes, and no. It was good to have at least a bit of quilting-related instruction, and it certainly is a big asset to be able to take several classes on a weekend without the additional cost of traveling, hotel, meals, etc. And if one is more careful about choosing the topic of the classes than I was in my blues-y mood when I did sign up, it might turn into a truly exciting learning experience. I appreciated the 'on demand' format, because I could stop the video, rewind, check back whether I had understood correctly, take a break for tea with my husband, and do the exercises without feeling rushed. But it is simply not the same as being in a crowd, together with other participants in a classroom, talking directly to the teacher and the others. But I do love the traveling part of quilt festivals, I am a traveler at heart and in soul and simply sitting in my studio with a computer is ... a different experience.

Yes, I am glad we have been able to develop the online mode of teaching during the pandemic, just imagine how terrible it would have been if we had not had this! No, I don't think everybody does a wonderful job with their online performances, and it should be taken into consideration that some ways of presenting might be ok live, but not in a recorded video. Yes, it was good to take the structured and well-prepared classes at own speed. But with the classes I taught myself it was the same feeling on the other side of the spectrum as I had on this occasion: it's simply much more fun to have the real experience.

A two-fold weekend

Last Friday I left for Dortmund where the extended board of the German Patchwork Guild met for their annual convention. I had been looking forward to this weekend for a long time. I like the other volunteers involved with the guild, it is always a very productive weekend and as this was going to be Barbara Lange’s last weekend in her position as President of the guild it was also going to be a special meeting.

Barbara Lange is showing some antique quilts which were donated to the German Patchwork
Guild`s collection and we are all admiring them...

I spent the afternoon after my arrival at the office working on an article for  the magazine, and when more and more people got together in the area where I was sitting, I put the computer down and we all started chatting and being social and eventually started eating the goodies some people had brought along. Then suddenly somebody said, hey, there is a stranger in the entrance area … and then he had disappeared. And my computer with him. The police came, and now there is a lot of paperwork to be done. And I am working on getting over the loss. (Unfortunately, my back-up system was not exactly perfect, although not completely stupid, at least most of my photos are safe.) Right now I am writing on a borrowed laptop from a friend while waiting for a replacement. And vowing to myself to be better about back-up.

After that, I could not quite enjoy the weekend as much as I had expected to. Add to that injury the insult that I heard that my two entries to the guild`s triannual challenge had not been selected... which might not have hurt so much on any other ordinary weekend, but which really did not make me happy under these circumstances.

Yes, the people were just as nice as ever, and as we are allowed to do quiet hand-stitching during the presentations I got quite a bit of stitching done on one of the UFOs I have vowed to finish in the near future. 

English Paper Piecing as a means of keeping the hands occupied while the mind
follows the presentations of Guild business matters.

But it could have been a much nicer weekend...