Merry Christmas!

I would like to wish everybody who is reading this, and, of course, everybody out there in the entire world, a Merry Christmas, whether you celebrate or not. Who is not hoping it will be a more peaceful year ahead of us?

My husband is a fan of candle-driven pyramids, and we have two, both of which are not out and taking his attention to keep them in motion. So besides the choir of angels (barely visible in the background) Christmas decoration is now in full swing. 

As has been the tradition in my family since my son was very young we had our family celebration yesterday evening already, and today is a severe work day for my husband, who is busy with services and all the necessary. A few times I would take my son to the Olympic pool in Munich in the morning of the 24th, keeping us out from my husband's feet when he was busy with all his preparations, especially in years when there was a children's musical to be performed in the afternoon service. This was before my son could participate in that. It used to be really quiet at the pool, and I always enjoyed that outing. Too bad he is too grown up now to come on a trip with me nowadays (but he did write me a very nice letter for Christmas, which touched me deeply.) If I remember correctly, last year I was working, but today being a Sunday that is not necessary, and as I have said before, my next (and last) days of work are Wednesday and after. So I now have time to start preparing dinner that will be served when my husband is finished and we will have our Senegalese guest over, who has been joining us for Christmas dinners for several years now. A little bit of time to reminisce a bit more, though.

Yesterday, as I was scrolling through pictures, I found this very old picture, which must have been scanned from a paper print, from way back then, when our group of exchange students from the Charlotte Exchange Student Program was on a trip west at the end of the year. Honestly, I had not remembered that I had this picture, though I did remember that we had stopped in San Francisco. I came back from that visit with a sweatshirt I had bought in Sausalito, where I didn't even go this time around...

What a terrible haircut I had - and you can't see how ugly my glasses were, thank goodness. Another picture I found was this:

I do remember taking that one - I was out on a walk on the 24th, it was sunny and too warm for the season and I saw this little dandelion and imagined I would write a children's book with a story of "The Little Dandelion who wanted to Celebrate Christmas". Never happened...

The good thing about celebrating a day before is that one is basically 'done' on the real day, and in earlier years I used to be completely relaxed in case I still needed to do a bit of shopping for the upcoming days when the supermarkets would be closed. Today, Sunday, I could just sit down in leisure and play with my sewing machine. 

I finished the baby quilt I have made using up the blocks from my aborted first attempt at making a temperature quilt. It hasn't been given to the child yet, but I am happy with it. Actually, I was amazed at how lively the colors shine in the quilt, which seemed to suggest that it wasn't a bad choice of color range after all - although you can't see it well on the picture.

But it was over-intellectual in how I was trying to incorporate an average temperature in the large triangles. Now I am glad it's found a purpose, nine single blocks remaining that will be the background for my contribution to the EQA-Birds-Challenge coming up.

And I continued on my piece that will be entered for Brno. Still some work to do, and some issues to figure out, but I was happy stitching.

Thanks for following this blog, wishing you a peaceful and quiet time and change of year!

Temperature Quilts, EQA-Diversity, AGM – Patchwork Gilde Deutschland in Dinkelsbühl

 

The Patchwork Gilde Deutschland holds an annual patchwork event around the legally required AGM meeting in order to attract many members to attend that meeting. The location varies. Last year, it was held in Meiningen, for the first time in what was formerly GDR. This year, we returned to Dinkelsbühl, a Frankonian town with a very compact and well-preserved medieval inner city and appearance, north of Augsburg.

 

I made the mistake to drive there after a full morning shift, and on the afternoon before the holiday – and I hadn’t believed the navigation system regarding the route it wanted me to take. So the trip took considerably longer because of a detour, I had to take a power nap on a rest area, and afterwards there was a traffic jam due to an accident and closing of the road… it took me almost 6 hours to get there, whereas it should have been a trip of only a little over 3 hours. But it was fun to be with my fellow volunteers from the Guild, and we started off the event with a joint dinner in a very scenic and delicious restaurant with beer brewing on the premises. On Thursday, we hung the exhibitions, according to a detailed plan, and on Thursday evening the official opening took place.

 

As the inner city is not very large and all exhibition venues were within the city wall it was easy to access all the exhibitions and get to see them all, despite the fact that I was stewarding the EQA-exhibition several times.

 

I had been so stressed out with receiving the quilts for the temperature quilt exhibition, the EQA quilts for the exhibition by the international representatives and the postal box mess-up that it took me a long time to calm down. But it did happen eventually, and I was able to enjoy the days there already, at least a bit, and even more calming down happened after I returned home.

Hanging "Sew EQA - EQA näht"
with strong and effective helpers.

 

I had been responsible for organizing the exhibition by EQA International Representatives, which was part of the stress beforehand due to the shipping issues. The location where the “Sew EQA – EQA näht” exhibition was shown is a rather rustic barn, storage room for stage props for a historical play enacting a mythical part of the town history. I think the surroundings were very interesting as an exhibition space, although it was a bit cold at times.

 

And I had been partly responsible for the display of the temperature quilts that were the result of the online group Bea Galler and I had led during 2022. Both exhibitions were very well received.

 

#temperaturcode22 by Bea Galler

*Year befor my 60th Birthday by Carola Runge

4 Seasons in Freiberg by Yvonne Joseph

I managed to see all the other exhibitions, although I did not take many pictures there. As always, I loved the children’s challenge quilts. It is fabulous what they come up with in answer to a cue, I always make sure to see them, and to cast a vote for the prize-giving at the last day.

 

I wish I were a chicken by ??? -
I didn't find out the makers name as I did
not attend the prize giving ceremony

Next year’s AGM is going to be held in Moers, near Düsseldorf. Haven’t been there yet – should be interesting!

What on earth was I thinking...? Part 2.

It is still supposed to be spring, but it has been so cold that the magnolia has frozen and there won't be many blossoms that will still open when it perhaps, finally, eventually warms up a bit.

 

As I am plowing through my moment of What-on-Earth-was-I-thinking I am also wearing my philosopher’s daughter hat. Recently I finished listening to Michelle Obama’s audiobook of “The Light We Carry”, in which she writes in detail about what knitting has meant to her during the early days of the pandemic, and what it can mean in anybody’s life. Yesterday that was added onto with an episode of “TheLong Thread” podcast, in which Melanie Falick is being interviewed about her book “Making a Life” and her investigations into the importance and meaning of making for our mental health and survival. I have been knitting for nine tenths of my life, with only a few years of interruption due to tendonitis, when I felt a severe sense of loss and disorientation because I could not knit any longer. That’s when I really got into quilting, replacing my yarn stash with a fabric stash. Of course, when I was pregnant I tried to knit a baby jacket, thinking ‘that can be done even when you’re prone to tendonitis’, and nothing serious happened, and then I knitted a pair of socks, and then several dozens more, and a jacket and another, and now there is a yarn stash and a fabric stash. And the fiber stash for spinning.

In terms of techniques of making, I have tried many. Sewing, knitting, crochet (not so much mine), Brussels Lace (great technique, but the results are not my style, even if done ‘modern’), macramé, embroidery, weaving, bookmaking (Loved that – might get back to it?), basket making (loved that – but it’s not easily done parallel with any techniques that require relatively soft skin on your hands), paper making…

While I am stitching my 24 full moon symbols into the temperature quilt, re-visiting some of the embroidery stitches from Mary Thomas’ Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches, which had been a beloved reference for A Scrap A Day already, I ponder about the tendency of the thread to run out just a little before the circle is complete (a parallel phenomenon to the empty bobbin in the sewing machine approx. 12 inches or so before the seam is finished). 

 

Or about how come that, although I really try to be careful and take precautions I think should be good enough, the needle tends to stitch through the embroidery thread at some point, jamming up, delaying the process considerably, if the mess can be undone at all. (No photo of this unpleaning situation! I refuse to photograph moments like that.) Some stitches are more prone to this malaise than others, unfortunately they have the tendency to be my favorite stitches, such as the French knot, or Coral Stitch. 

Elongated French Knot, dangerous.

Scroll Stitch, a bit dangerous.

 

Or whether it matters that the stitched full moons don’t seem to be very noticeable overall in the piece when seen from a little distance. Only a closer look makes them slightly more obvious.

 

These musings, of course, don’t compare in significance to those on the importance of knitting and making for well-being, physical or mental. In fact, I never really thought about that, I just was happy enough knitting and spinning and making and did not feel the need for thinking about this. But I do remember a sense of gratitude when reading Alice Starmore’s “Book of Fair Isle Knitting”, and particularly the first chapters, because finally there was somebody taking knitting, its history and development seriously. Not just something women did to keep themselves occupied.

And as for the unhappy tendency of the embroidery needle to stitch through the thread and get it all jumbled… there must be a way to avoid that more successfully than I can. Right now there are only 3 full moons left to embroider, and then I will put away the embroidery threads for a while again, there are other temptations out there waiting to be tackled. A new challenge for the 20 Perspectives Goup, for example. But right now, 21 full moons down, three to go.