A Visit to Denmark

 

During the last winter Anine Sluyterman, the International Representative of the Danish Patchwork Guild, had contacted me and asked whether I would like to come to their AGM in Odense at the end of August and bring an exhibition to show to the Danish Quilters. Of course I would! I had to make arrangements with a colleague at work to ‘swop’ our working weekends, but that worked out fine. Then I had to get an overview where my quilts were, after our moves, and which ones I still own, because I had given some away when leaving our old place.

A week ago my husband and I set off to the north. It had been more than forty years since I had last been to Denmark, I admit. Now I wonder why… Right behind the border we were pleasantly surprised at how nice the stop and rest area on the highway was arranged and constructed, much more comforting and enjoyable than those in Germany. And the entire stay continued like that. I fell in love with Denmark and the Danes! Hope to be back soon.

The exhibition location was marked by the Dansk Patchwork Foregning’s flag as shown above. I really like the way they have made the Danish Flag their symbol by transforming it into a patchwork pattern!

Arranging my quilts went quickly, I had a few ‘left-overs’ that I didn’t have enough room for, but better than I did not bring enough to fill the space!

trial layout - the quilt in the lower left did not make it into
 the final cut.

 

I was pleased with the way the quilts presented themselves on the wall. And I received quite a bit of positive feedback, had many nice conversations and was generally made feel very welcome throughout the entire two days. 

 

I met SarahHibbert, who was showing her quilts across the aisle from me 

 

Sarah Hibbert, Haiku

and we had a lovely and interesting conversation about our shared love of audio books, giving each other recommendations over the festive 40th anniversary dinner on Saturday night.

I did not take a whole lot of photos from the other exhibitions, but want to show this one made from men's striped shirts. Lovely setup and arrangement!

Else Graf Jorgensen (put a / across the o, please, 
don't know how to achieve that on the computer right now)
Striped Men's Shirts

 My husband got to do a bit of sightseeing, I only took a little time off to go and see the Hans Christian Andersen Museum downtown before returning for stewarding duty.

It was a lovely excursion and interesting experience. I really enjoyed seeing my quilts up on the wall again after almost three years. The mojo has definitely had a good push!

The Whale and The World Beyond

 

For the past several weeks Germany was obsessed with a humpback whale’s fate after it got stuck on a sand bed in the Baltic (where it wasn’t supposed to be to begin with). It wasn’t possible to avoid being confronted with the steps of development in the poor creature’s fate. Attempts at rescue, re-grounding, then after several weeks they transported it to the North Sea to be released, now the tracker is not transmitting – is it dead or was the tracker dismantled? 

Still media coverage – and all that time I was wondering whether it would be possible to write a theatre play about this, titled “The Whale”. I would have liked to contrast all these whale drama developments with the real problems going on in the world right now. And there are many that appeared to be of much less concern to the German media recently than the poor whale. I have tried to put all my thoughts about this into a blog post – which did get written, but the play will not. But then I decided I wasn’t going to write about the whale either. I bet there are enough places on the internet where you can inform yourself about the developments. (Breaking news of the day there is a dead whale near Denmark, but not certain yet whether it is the same one.... )

Instead I will be happy that the third box of EQA quilts arrived, that I get to put it up in the CCS in Suhl for German Patchwork Gilde’s annual event and that I will be in a patchwork bubble for a few days.

Bea, Monika and Regina were a fantastic team of helpers. 
Never have I been involved in such a quick putting-up of an exhibition! 
Admittedly, well prepared through prior presentations, beginning in Alsace, and, latest, Finland.
Thank you to everybody involved ahead of us!

View onto a minor section of half of the "Contrast" EQA exhibit 
at Patchwork Gilde's AGM in Suhl.

 

 I know this is a bit of escapism, but I am having difficulties processing the world right now.

 

Stitching helps me, if not the world, unfortunately.