On and on and on...

The numbers of infection are at an all-time high here now. And still rising. Last year we were talking about the 35/50 limits where severe measures would be put into place, in the spring it was 100, now we have surpassed the 1,000 and the incoming government with the newly elected parliament have put 'an end' to the 'pandemic situation' that used to be mentioned in the law. It makes you wonder whether they are completely out of their mind, or what is happening here? I am very grateful I received my third shot yesterday a week ago, because by now I have been transferred to working (helping out) on ICU, and believe me, that is absolutely no fun at all. Every single case who needs intensive care in our hospital has not been vaccinated. And I ask myself where did these people live for the past 2 years? Everybody could have been vaccinated by now, the predictions of what would come if this did not happen before this winter were out there - and still people think their 'right to decide' and their 'right to physical integrity' counted higher than their duty to contribute to the entire society's physical integrity by helping to break this virus' spread? I am so disappointed with my fellow Germans, it is beyond words. Especially now that I am working in the hospital, having to risk my physical integrity and health by taking care of these egotists and dealing with their stupidity. I am MAD. So so so so mad... And now there are reports about the yet again new and more infectious variant of the virus. That is completely disheartening.

Right now, I don't know whether it will be possible to go for my little four day vacation I had planned at the beginning of December, and for which I have booked a holiday apartment. We are supposedly facing a lockdown for unvaccinated persons, but I don't know yet how far restrictions will apply to people who have been vaccinated yet. Will they allow private tourist travel, or will that be forbidden? Will my 16-yr-old once again have to stay home, no basketball practice, but be forced to go to school? I think he is perfectly right when he says his 'social life' doesn't happen on school grounds, he wants to go to basketball practice. And why should professional soccer players be allowed to 'play', but the young people not? 

I woke up with a sore throat and a headache this morning and as we are supposed to stay at home from work with symptoms of a cold, I did that. A test was negative, which is a relief, after all I have been assigned to the ICU for the past two weeks and, althought the 'outside' relief personnel is usually the person who makes sure that personnel 'in' the cubicles with Covid patients has all the material and medication they need without having to leave the isolation room, of course that means that I am exposed to the overall environment, and in some cases I did have to dress up in all the protective gear and assist a colleague with handling of immobile, artificially respirated and/or sedated patients.

But as I got to stay home, I was able to make the most of my good intentions I had announced on my instagram account two days ago. I had planned to not spend money on the so-called 'Black Friday' on some supposedly sale item, but to dedicated my time to continue mending one of my mending projects, the light pair of pants. It had been sitting on my table, biding its time in a state of neglect since some time in the late summer.

So I took this mending project to bed and between sleeping a little and resting I got a heap of stitching done. 

The piece of fabric I am attaching here is an older piece of linen, not exactly the same quality as the pants, but I like the look of it. It is rather big, too, not only a small mend.

I went down the entire piece of linen, and then started circling around in one direction, then the other, to slightly secure the fraying edges.

And then, because I found myself in a kind of flow, I just went ahead and started on the next patch.

So Mending Friday instead of spending Friday was a good day for these pants. This is how they look from the front now.

And this is the back side.

I wouldn't exactly say they're beautiful. But they are a statement, and I will proudly wear them this coming summer, and many more.

And in the evening I went down into the basement and brought up our choir and orchestra of angels to start the Christmas decoration.

Unfortunately, no Christmas markets this year, again, so we won't be adding a new member. But it is reassuring to see these little fellows on our window sill. If I feel well again tomorrow, I will start on Christmas cookies tomorrow. Traditions are soothing, perhaps they will help tie me over this oncoming next wave of virus...

Knighted! (If that applies to females.)

 By my son! 16 years old, definitely not wearing a hand-knit sweater or anything like that (only socks), and very sensitive to things I say and do in public when he is around - so embarassing...! But. I was shown this sad item, which he had bought from his own money and couldn't remember or explain how it had been ripped.

Strict instructions, though, it must be as unobtrusive as possible. I am observing how he is starting to develop a taste, trying for a style, and he has style (and at over 6 feet tall already he will be handsome, let me tell you!), so I knew that the fact that I was being asked was about the highest kind of leap of faith I would receive. I must not disappoint those expectations. I knew I was not allowed to do anything like either of these, which might have been what I would have chosen had it been my own piece of clothing.

Especially the red piece would have been my personal choice, but this is only hypothetic playing around, for the archives of creativity. I went ahead and auditioned three different kinds of thread color.

 

The fabric piece was used as a backing from the inside of the rip, which, being located at the upper part of a pocket that probably receives a lot of use from thrust-in hands, is bound to carry a lot of strain.

The outline is meant to keep the fabric in place, and the rip is fastened to the fabric with a separate outline, too. And then a bit of stitching began.

At this stage I asked him how much more stitching he wanted, and he opted for 'that's enough'. I did mention that I wasn't sure how long this would last, but he was satisfied. The finished piece looks like this:

We will see how long it will last. And how daring I get allowed to be next time he lets me mend something for him.

Good Riddance – good-bye to month no. 11

 Biding Time (pun intended) is what I seem to have been doing. 

 

November and I don’t go well together in any normal or good year, but add a dose of pandemic, including lockdown during what would have been 3 weeks of vacation that were meant to be a first trip to the International Quilt Festival in Houston... forget it. Too much anxiety for my taste with the elections in the US ... but one can only be thankful for the result, even if so much still seems vulnerable before the transition is done. More than a complete week without any sunshine at all – something like that kills me! 

 

So I seem to have taken a non-premeditated break from blogging, but that is just as well. I would not have been able to write positive posts, and I certainly don’t want to be lamenting or whining here.

I was making. But not really in terms of art. I am spinning a sweater quantity of yarn I have partly carded myself with my recent acquisition of a carder.

I am knitting, several different projects parallel to each other, and it would make much more sense to concentrate on one and get it done than to be jumping from one to the other.

I taught another online class for the German Patchwork Guild, basics of HST making, and the participants were happy. And grateful to be involved in something that was getting their mind of the pandemic and lockdown measures. As it was doing for me.

And suddenly I found myself writing instructions for a project that could be run by the Guild to keep members happy. I had been caught by an image in a copy of France Patchwork’s magazine from earlier in the year, it got me hooked, I started researching, and so I ended up sewing several large blocks using a stack of printed fabric samples from an Australian company that had still been waiting in my boxes. 

 

I will not show the top in its entirety, although it is finished as of yesterday, as the final decision as to how the set of instructions will be put to use for members of the Guild has not been made. But I am happy with the result and will quickly put it on the longarm. The most remarkable thing about this is that I really do not enjoy writing instructions, as I myself don't like working from them, in neither medium that I dabble in. So this could indeed be considered a miracle of coronal times, on a very small and personal level. (Though I have found myself thinking 'had I known that there would indeed be a way of making some money from writing and selling instructions' as many people seem to be doing these days, I might have taken more care to make myself adept at doing so, way back then. But no use crying over spilt milk, and I am not going to start with that now any more intensively than this, for sure.)

I wanted to enter my yellow scraps quilt from the first lockdown phase in SAQA’s ‘Light the World’ exhibition. But guess what – it was too big. Not my first time... And it had not been made directly for this challenge, but it was a disappointment. Luckily I had an alternative, and entered both, the Quilt that Sewed Itself and the Mellow Yellow for QuiltCon Together. I was a day early for the deadline, so could actually get pictures of the binding, as was required for the entry. 

 

I am not really expecting them to be accepted, but they are getting their chance.

I am participating in an online workshop with Phyllis Cullen and Cindy Richard who have just published their book “It’s all about the face”. It was not my intention to start making portraits, but I liked the presentation the two of them gave for a regional SAQA zoom meeting in August, and now is as good a time to learn something new. And there are a few people whose portrait to make might be fun, so here I am, I bought MistyFuse (no, I don't fuse!), and I am through with the first exercise, in terms of layering. And looking forward to getting started on my own photos or ideas.

A woolen blanket from New Zealand, which came home with me many years ago when I bought a painting from a (then) young painter and brought it back on the plane has become a new mending project. 

 

The hole has been fixed, but there are still several areas that need reinforcement, so there is time to be spent on that. And then I can use it for my yoga blanket when I need one.

Because I have been doing online yoga with a teacher (Kristina Krüger ) I had met during my week-long stay at the Yoga Hotel Kubatzki . Kristina suggested on the first of this month that we take the remaining not too many days of this year to take a kind of inventory of the good things we learned during this strange and frequently unpleasant year. So by the end of the month we would come up with at least 31 things that were positive. I like the idea. And I am already behind on making my list. One thing that I have definitely learned is that it does me very very good to get up before breakfast and do a good yoga workout before the real day starts. Getting up in the dark, with the current mood, however, is not easy. I try. And sometimes I succeed.

Looking back on what I have written, it doesn't sound as if month no. 11 was quite that bad. Nevertheless, I do hope we will be able to travel again, soon, and I can take off during this month, see the sun somewhere and get out of here during this time of year!

The Matters of Mending: self-experiment part 3

Before the publication of the book review in the magazine of the German Patchwork Guild in the middle of June I want to show the third part of my self-experiment in the spirit of Katrina Rodabaugh's book 'Mending Matters'. Again, it is a mend of a pair of pants in the much-stressed area between the upper thighs. Somehow that is the only area (so far) where my pants need mending. But don't worry, after this instalment I will not show any more repairs of that particular area, if I decide to show other mending activities of mine they will be slightly more original or on other types of garments.
So one of my favorite pair of jeans was worn through on both sides of the upper inner thighs, and I had been saving it ever since I saw the announcement of Rodabaugh's books because I was planning to use it as a test items.

Different from the light colored pair of pants earlier I decided that this challenge could not be met through a patch from the inside. Instead, I chose Katrina's 'outside patch'. Edges were fold-ironed before stitching them over the threadbare area.

With the first patch, I chose a grey thread and first stitched all around the circumference of the patch before filling it up.

For the second patch I decided to be bit more daring in terms of color and used a red thread instead.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to take a picture yet of what it looks like when I am wearing the jeans and I don't want to ask my son to do it ... but I hope there will be a chance to find somebody who will do that for me. Because I am curious myself how much of the mend will be visible.

There are still more mending issues on a stack that need to be tackled in the near future, for example the light trousers I started out with definitely need more work in other places. And the whole thing will be a further process of learning. But I do agree with Katrina Rodabaugh that it is a kind of state of mind to be doing that.
I can't really say how long the life span of my clothes will be extended through this. I don't usually 'wear through' anything but these areas of pants, and yet I usually wear my clothes for many years. And if I do give them away, which does not happen often, I give them to a second hand store, so keeping them out of landfill is not one of the issues why I would be mending. Mending has not been a necessity, but it certainly is an interesting addition to my range of textile activity. I had had the idea of mending visibly myself, before ever hearing of Katrina Rodabaugh or any of the 'sustainable fashion' people, or slow sewists or mindful menders or whatever name, and if you can sew basic stitches it might now be necessary to buy Katrina's book purely for the techniques of mending. But it certainly holds a wide range of ideas if you feel uncertain about how to go along, and it would be a great gift for a textile friend!

The Matters of Mending - self-experiment, part 2

When I went on vacation early April, I took a bit of work with me. For one thing, I had to finish the article on and translation of one chapter from Katrina Rodabaugh’s book “Mending Matters”,

which will be published in the German Patchwork Guild’s magazine in June. As I had started before,

I wanted to do a few sample/self experiments before the publication in the magazine (although not before it was being sent off to the editor…), so I also packed two pairs of pants that desperately needed mending, this time my own. 

The one I started with was a light colored pair in jeans style, which I have had for several years. And, although I would never have called it a ‘favorite’ pair of pants of mine, obviously I had worn it enough to get it to the point where it was thinning in seriously important places (i.e. interior upper thighs). They hadn’t been worn through entirely, but it was getting dangerously thin. And some fraying at the back of the seam of the right leg, and a bit of a hole on the inside of the bottom leg.

Basically my thoughts behind taking this pair of pants to be an object for my self-experiment were that, because I did not consider these pants anything like a favorite, it wouldn’t hurt terribly if the mending didn’t turn out right, or did not feel good wearing them after mended. Now I know, a big part of Katrina’s philosophy is to not throw clothes away, and I wasn’t planning to do so, since of course I was expecting this to be a very successful experiment. But if it hadn’t turned out totally successful, the tears on my side wouldn’t have been flowing for very long.

So I started on the frayed backside seam and - for lack of sashiko thread, which Katrina uses -  stitched over that with one of my hand-dyed threads from when I was still dyeing threads with the fabric club.

Then I went on to fix the small hole on the inside of the leg, and that turned out nicely indeed.

First I stitched a piece of light-weight linen onto the inside of the leg.

Then I flipped the extending part of the linen to the outside, affixed it and...

then the sides of the mending fabric were secured with buttonhole stitch.

And then I took up the challenge of the thinning place on one side of the upper thighs. Of course, I had not really brought the exact right fabric to use. That linen I was using for the hole was a scrap I found in the box for "A Scrap a Day", that I was also working on during those days. So I cut up a longish strip of linen and placed three pieces of it next to each other on the inside.

Then I stitched them in both directions, first in one direction, then perpendicular to the first direction, and it turned out like this.

 

One direction only, on the inside.

One direction only on the outside.

Two directions done, on the outside.

Can't take a picture of myself from behind, so I don't know how much you actually see of the mend.It is a rather large area indeed, and basically the whole pair of pants needs reinforcement. So it is a question of dedication in terms of how much time does one want to put into a single pair of pants to prolong its lifetime... I guess I just will keep working on this one as long as it takes.

Stitching the mending fabric into the leg from the inside was a bit of a nuisance, having to turn the whole piece, trying not to prick oneself  with the pins that were keeping everything in place etc. But overall it worked well, and when I tried it on it seemed to fit alright. And the next day, when I wore it, it felt quite alright. So I figured I would probably go ahead and mend the other leg back home a few days later, too, when I had more fabric at hand that was of the correct weight.

The Matters of Mending - a Self Experiment

Mending Clothes has become fashionable (again). Books are being published on the topic, and Sustainable Wardrobe, thrifting, slow fashion have become words that are being used a lot now. For the German Patchwork Guild's magazine I am writing a book review of Katrina Rodabaugh's book "Mending Matters" (to appear in the June edition of the magazine), and we will be featuring her as a maker and artful mender in the magazine as well.

Not that I had not ever mended a piece of clothing before, and I have written about little bits of mending before. But I wanted to run a sort of self-experiment based on this book as material of guidance before I started writing the review.
Luckily - for this purpose - one of the refugees happened to come along with a severe rip in one of his two pairs of jeans and asked whether that could be mended.

Under normal circumstances I might just have said, 'hey, let's go and buy a new pair' as they don't own much anyway and there is always bound to be a sale somewhere where you can pick up a pair of jeans for a good price. But this was a gift from somewhere and I asked him whether he would let me mend it for him, and might it be a bit crazier than he thought. Still thinking I could go and buy that new pair afterwards as well if he decided he was not pleased with my work.
So I studied closely what Katrina Rodabaugh lists as necessities, and started following her steps.

Preparing the patch to be added on the inside.
I disobeyed Katrina's rules in this one because I did not have any leftover
denim that I could use as 'same weight' fabric for the patch. This is just a
lighter piece of fabric in an almost similar color.

First stitches attaching the patch on the inside of the rip. Of course, the rip
occurred in a place that was not exactly easy to get to. Given the unfavorable
location and handling, however, I claim I did pretty well: no folds or other mishaps.

View from the inside at the same point in time: the patch had been attached as
such on the outside, then the interior areas are being filled with mostly running
stitch.

Apart from the fact that the tips of my fingers started complaining at some point due to lack of sufficient practice and roughening with this kind of fabric, it was an easy mend.

The whole patch area has been filled with running stitch. If it had been a mend
for myself I might have chosen red thread, buth I did not dare go so noticeable
with a pair of pants that wasn't mine.

Some additional stitches to fasten the edges of the rip and enforce the area of the
patch that turned out visible in the rip.

Completed mend.

I liked it, but when I returned it to the owner I was a bit shy about his reaction to expect - I had told him it might be a bit of a noticeable mend, but of course he would not have know how far I would or could go. He trusts me, though, and said it was fine, and let me take a photo of the finished piece as he was wearing it.

Meanwhile I have gone to a local thrift store and bought a pair of jeans there in order to use that as a denim source. Neither my husband nor my son wear jeans, so there are no thriftable old pairs in the house when I want to start mending mine differently from ironing glue-on-patches onto the worn areas. Of course, with my jeans the first place to give up is the upper thigh area where the pants experience the most wear when riding the bike, which I do a lot in my everyday activities. The bike is my prime means of transportation in town.
The problem with my current favorite jeans, is, of course, that it got worn a lot, and that I did not start mending BEFORE the thin area broke. So now I have challenge ahead of me. Stay tuned - how much I will use of Katrina's techniques and add on to them with my own ideas, I don't know yet. But it is bound to happen sometime soon.

The Flint-effect

By nature, I am not a mender at heart. But Kathleen Loomis’ repeated reports on hermending, and my son’s pant-knees-straining-activities have impressed and led me to do some of the usual mending such as ironing and stitching patches onto a pair of Jeans. 

Two of the most interesting and inspiring books that I read last year have also contributed to this development, but in a different. India Flint’s „Second Skin“ and „Eco Color“ were so rewarding to read, that I can only recommend anybody who is interested in textiles, dyeing and anything to do with fabric and who doesn’t own them yet to put these titles on your Christmas wishing list. Judith Mundwiler, too, has reported on her inspiration from India Flint in a blog entry here. Unfortunately, I was not able to go to Scotland and participate in the workshops India Flint has just been teaching there. But my fascination with her processes of dyeing with natural materials had already led me to begin a collection of protein by freezing any residue from rinsing milk bottles, cream bottles and yoghurt containers in a plastic bottle. I had been planning to do some experimenting this summer, and the reservoir had become substantial enough. Unfortunately, my son managed to not completely close the freezer door when he took out ice-cream a couple of months ago, which ruined a large part of the contents of the freezer, including my protein. So as long as the remainders in the freezer haven’t been depleted in total and the freezer de-thawed to put it back into good working condition, I am not starting on a new collection, and the experiments have to wait until next summer, I am afraid. 

In any case, the effects and results of dyeing that India shows on her blog and in the books speak to me much more than collecting onion skins for weeks and weeks on end. We’ll see how I like this kind of natural dyeing.

But to get back to the original topic, India’s books have changed my mending habits. Not that I usually have a whole lot of things that need mending in my own wardrobe. But I have decided to take those chances in a more daring approach. I won’t do the mending-so-you-don’t-see-that-it-has-been-mended anymore. Instead, I will use this as a pep-up. And I have recently completed my first two tasks. The first was a summer top that had started fraying at the seams. I covered those spots with fabric remnants from my scrap box.

 

Fraying edges were...

covered up in the back...

and in the front.

When I was wearing the mended top for the first time, my husband looked at me a little skewed and asked in a certain kind of voice whether this was intentional or not. Apart from that, none of the other people around said a word. And there were quite a few around.

The second item was a light jacket that could also be worn as a blouse which had a hole that I don’t quite remember how it got in there. If I recall correctly, the piece got caught in my bike brakes or something, there is a large stain on the front, too.

A rip on the upper part of a sleeve.

This hole has been covered in a creative manner. 

As this was completed only a few days ago, I haven’t yet worn it in public, so haven’t received any comments either. Not even my husband has seen it yet... And I still have to decide what to do with the stain on the front, right now it is being covered by a decorative pin.

India Flint herself mentioned on her blog that one of her books that is currently out of print is being offered on that large book-seller’s pages for an outrageous price. If you don’t want to or can’t spend that much money, she also told us that a reprint is in preparation. So that Christmas wish of yours might still be fulfilled...