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!

 

A Scrap A Day - Progress report

My Daily Art project for this year has started nicely. So far I have not had to catch up, I have always found time to get it done 'in time', i.e. I had enough time before going to bed to get it done in enough of a leisure. And I like the way it is developing.
While I was in England, Chrisse insisted that she be involved in the project by contributing the threads during the days I was there. So all the following scraps have been stitched onto the linen with Chrisse's threads.

Only one of the scraps during the week was attached with hand-dyed threads I had acquired from InStitches on Saturday, when they were giving a talk and workshop at the Thames Valley CQ Group Meeting, which we went to as well, driving there in dismal amounts of rain, and back.

And this is what it looks like from the back:

I wonder whether I should take daily pictures of the progress, but I don't think I will. It is kind of fun to lose track a bit on the order of appearance of the scraps on the piece. It is not supposed to be a diary.

Piecing myself back together?

Last Monday, I picked Gillian Travis and her husband up from the station and the three of us went to Freising together, to meet with Barbara Lange, another member of our joint group International Threads. As the members of the group live pretty far apart, it is always a good occasion when at least three are somewhere in the same area, to arrange for a get-together. We had an intensive two-hour work-meeting to clarify some issues of the group, which was very helpful. 

After that I went back home to what I though would be a week of dyeing, longarm-quilting and stitching on my quilt for the SAQA Diaspora Show.

But in fact, this past week has been taken over by issues of the refugees, and I am beginning to think it is simply getting too much. Although I really like them and want to be helpful with issues of little every-day problems, integration, and teaching some of them German, I have been a bit overwhelmed lately. A couple is having severe marriage problems which has just now led to separation – but this is really nothing I should have to deal with. Social workers, who are the ones who should be dealing with it, took the woman and 2-yr-old child away, but left the husband completely on his own, who, of course, is now entirely besides himself with grief and incomprehension.

One young man, who is applying to go to computer school, is trying to get his High School Diploma acknowledged. First his letter got stuck and delayed in the recent strike of the German postal service. And now the authorities in Munich returned everything because the verified translation of the report card had a note saying “translated from photocopy” instead of “translated from verified photocopy”, and they need to have either the original or a verified copy of the report card, AND a statement from an institution of learning that he actually needs this translation now and isn’t only trying to get one for the fun of having one just in case he might need one, quickly, later. And please include postage stamps for the return mail. So I was telephoning around to get the necessary alterations on the translation, luckily my husband could take care of verifying the photocopy of the report card, and when he fills out the application form (title ‘re-entry’, as they have returned the original application form as well) we should have everything together now. Sometimes I wonder why bureaucracy ever was invented to begin with. Is this really necessary?

Yesterday I had meant to do only things for my own work, and my family, except for a planned one hour German lesson with the Syrians only.  I ended up minding an African baby and her six year old brother for almost two hours while the mother was looking at another possible accomodation, because right now she is living in quarters that are much too small for the three of them, and then after the German lesson I spent yet another hour attending a crisis-talk between the desolate husband and a male social worker whom, I admit, I had called in myself to get out of this. I can understand that the woman is trying to make the most of opportunities for her in this country which are different than those she would have had in her home environment, but I don’t want to be the target of the husband’s wrath, who has so far not been very eager to learn German, or integrate himself in any way.

It’s been an intense week indeed! I’m way behind in my attendance of the Pixeladies’ second part of the online class on Photoshop Elements. And I wonder whether I will be able to catch up in the remaining week that the classroom is open...

Come to think of it, though – I did manage to get four of the six colours dyed and ironed for the next fabric by yesterday evening, the last two colours are seeping in the bucket downstairs just now, and I did not even forget to do the threads. But you can see: the numbers of buckets is increasing as I have had a satisfying number of new sign-ups during the first half of the year.

And I have indeed started (hand-)piecing the ‘migration’ quilt. Although you can't really see much of what is going on yet. It will be 'text messages', I think number 8.

But I do want a bit more of my own life back for my family and myself. So we went to the City Square Festival yesterday evening – the African refugees have started a drumming group after we received a donation  of several drumming instruments, and gave a fabulous first public appearance together with a local drummer, and some children.

What an enrichment of cultural life in this town!

And the winner is...

At midnight the deadline for entering the ‘raffle’ for a set of hand-dyed threads in the upcoming November-collection-colours ended.

I wrote each name on a piece of paper and put them all together into this siginificant plastic bowl.

And here is a nine-year-old expert shuffling

and in the final stage just before revelation of the lucky winner’s name:

And the winner is: Cristina R. – congratulations!

Thank you to all who participated. I will now go and sit down at my rotary iron to process the fourth of the six colours.

4th anniversary of justcolours.de – win a November thread collection of hand-dyed threads

I announced it on my German blog a while ago: starting this month, subscriptions could be extended to include a hand-dyed threads collection in the same colours as the hand-dyed fabrics of the fabric club. When I started planning this newest product I had absolutely no idea how well it would be received. But I have to say that I am very content with the number of ‘old’ subscribers who ordered this additional feature, and also with the ratio of ‘threads included’ in the new subscriptions since I have been telling people about it since Veldhoven.

Right now I am in the midst of dyeing the November-collection of fabrics, and for the first time a special arrangement for the threads must be included. 

Waiting for dye...

The intellectual challenge, of course, is, to remember to take a little bit of the dye when beginning every colour, and pour it over the prepared threads. Because if I forget that... then it would be difficult to get the same shade of colour again, as they are always different.

This month's collection, of course, marks the 4th anniversary of my little business adventure – it was in the beginning of November 2010 that I started dyeing my „Introductory collection“ for the fabric club. In celebration of this moment in history you can win a set of hand-dyed threads in the colours of this November-collection. This is a rather exclusive prize as these threads are ONLY available in subscription.

Here is what you have to do to enter the draw:

Between now and Tuesday, Nov 25th, 2014, midnight leave a comment (with a recognizable name) on either the German or the English Blog. I will have a neutral person draw a lucky winner, who will be announced on the blog. Limit of one comment per person.

Good luck to all participants.

And thank you very much to all those who have helped make my enterprise be as successful as it is!

Just about one year

is how long I needed to complete this little UFO of mine.

Last August I had taken Lisa Walton’s class ‚Threads to Dye for’. Of course I know how to dye fabrics, and I had been thinking about extending that knowledge to threads, but somehow I was lazy and thought it would be nice to have somebody experienced tell me at least about a few of the tricks needed and difficulties easily encountered when dyeing threads. Instead of doing all the trial and error on my own, why re-invent the wheel?

It was a fun class, because Lisa is fun to be around, and although it lasted a mere three hours I think we got a good introduction into what it takes to dye threads successfully. Most of the work is skeigning the threads so that they can be dyed easily.

We got to take our „finished“ product in a small plastic container as shown in the picture at the top of the post. “Finished”, because it needed to be rinsed, which I did for a first time in the hotel sink. When they were dry, I just shoved them back into the container, assuming that it would not ooze any liquid that might cause major alarm at airport security on my way home. I meant to continue the rinsing etc. at home.

That didn’t happen too quickly, though, the container was sitting amongst my dyeing utensils, biding its time. Lisa had said they could easily be put into the washing machine in a little bag for hosiery, but I remained rather sceptical about that. A good friend of mine had told me about a conversation he had had with an Australian when traveling in the US – both of them had commented on the length of the washing cycle of American washing machines. While the German thought the American machines were taking a rather short time, and wondering whether the clothes would be cleaner at all, the Australian thought the American machines were taking rather long before they were finished. Not having any personal experiences with Australian washing machines myself I just did not want to take the risk and put my threads into a German machine, even on a short cycle, as I did not want to end up with a Gordian knot! Plus, I don’t own any bags like that and have never seen them anywhere and did not want to start looking around.

Then, when I heard from Laura Wasilowsky  in April that she rinses all her threads by hand, I decided that that was what I was going to do, too. More rinsing, then a little bath with synthrapol, and then a rack:

Now they are finished. 

Trying out different modes of presentation

And I am curious when I will have the first opportunity of putting them to use.

I haven’t decided yet as to I will do more of this. First, I need to start a search for a good source of undyed threads I would like to use. And secondly, the skeigning... but we are going on a one week family holiday where we might actually have not much to do in the evenings. And I am not taking a sewing machine, so perhaps I could do some skeigning of those threads I have.