ooops - Benefit Auction Time!

We had a very warm stretch in early April, which resulted in all the trees getting ready to bloom about three weeks early. Then frost came, a lot of the buds froze, and now we are actually having the kind of weather that is typically called ‘April weather’. In May, when it should be warmer, more springy - in any case, I must have somewhere lost track of time. Yesterday I remembered, hey- it’s May, wasn’t there usually something going on with Benefit Auction for SAQA? During the last years I would be busy at this time of year already, trying to scan the growing list of donated quilts on SAQA's website to have an overview about how many had been donated from Europe/MIddle East, so I could post them in the countdown on the blog just before the auction started. 

For several years I have myself donated a piece, they all sold, and I didn’t mean to let this row break. But until yesterday I had not given a single thought to that topic. Or laid a conscious hand onto the quilt. Missed the Early Bird deadline, for sure, it had passed me by completely.

So as I was ironing yesterday, trying out little things and color combinations, my eyes fell onto three smaller quilts that were lying in the shelf opposite my ironing board. Right size they would have been. But neither of them represents me in the stage I am in right now, nor do I find them convincing. (Yes, the inner critic is a very strong presence once a quilt is finished …) But time is short - the quilt must have been received by June 1^st, that means it must go into the post QUICKLY!

I have been working on something which should have been a quilt for an International Threads challenge, ‘hand stitched’. It was supposed to have been called ‘Waste No Thread’, and in it I was using up all cut-off threads of my recent pieces, longarm custom quilting, longarm my quilting, two pieces from the ‘text messages’ series that I finished recently (yes, I have been able to finish things, although there is a certain lack of ideas as to what to start on now). For the International Threads challenge it would still have taken a lot of work. For a 12" x 12", however... it was almost done!

So I set about using up the remaining pieces of thread I had assembled, almost finished that yesterday. The last pieces were added this morning as I was listening to the radio, and then I also managed to do the facing and tunnel right away. 

Now all it needs is a sign with the title - haven't decided on that one yet. Should it stay "Waste No Thread!", or should it be "Play of Lines XXXX: Crossing the Red Line"? I will sleep on that for a night.

Into May

On May 1st our open-air swimming pool opened, and I made a point of actually dipping into the water. At 14 degrees centigrade that was not a prolonged swim, but today’s 18 degrees already felt much better. I actually swam 1200 metres and declare the summer swimming season officially opened.

We also pre-celebrated our May-clustered family celebrations on May 1^st, because we knew there wouldn’t be a whole lot of time on either of the birthdays, nor on the wedding anniversary. The boy will have a proper birthday party in a couple of weeks with his friends, the mother just sort of skipped her birthday as she was driving and setting up a stall on the day proper.

Meanwhile, I have been to and come back from the Nadelwelt in Karlsruhe, where I sold fabrics, 

made contact with Leni Wiener, who will be featured in one of the next issues of the German Patchwork Guild’s magazine, and have gone back to the sewing machine. Little stuff only at this point, but my entry for Made in Europe II is also in the line, all it needs is a facing and tunnel, and then it can go to the photographer, and I might actually make it on time. No pictures right now, as jurying is still coming up.

Teaching at the school has been very intensive again - we are waiting for work permits for several of the students who are from countries that are being considered ‘safe countries of origin’ and for which Germany’s government is pulling extra efforts to have people deported back. It’s not been an easy time for either these students or the other teachers and me, and two of the students have given up hope. They have moved on - and it was very sad to suddenly have empty spaces in the classroom. Others are still holding out, but hope is fading, additional reprimatory action is taking place these days, and we still don’t know what will happen. In the whole context of this, I don’t know whether I will be teaching at that school again next year. If only a part of the class - those who are ‘proper political asylum seekers’ - gets a permit, I don’t think I will continue. But as long as we don’t know, nothing has been decided yet. I admit I am torn - I love working there, I love teaching these people and getting to know them. But it has really interfered heavily with my quilt making, and it has taken such a huge emotional toll that I am not sure, how I want the situation to continue. Of course, next year, there won't be anybody from Senegal in the class, the situation will be entirely different in that respect. I don't know how the class would have been this year without the people from Senegal in there, either, but I am very grateful to have met and got to know them. It's just a bit difficult to be a witness to their struggles, hopes, and problems, and not being able to really help them with their personal situations...

Time flies like an arrow, and fruit flies like a banana...

That is one of the jokes I used to hear from my boss in former times, when I was still working as a linguist at the university... Sometimes it would be abbreviated to "Time flies like a banana", and then what? I knew it had been a while since I'd written my last post, but two weeks... has it really been that long? What have I been doing with myself?
I can assure you I have been busy. And I have been quilting. And dyeing. And teaching. And trying to figure out an almost twelve-year-old's mind... And not taking the time to sit down for the blog, obviously.

I have been working on a quilt for the German Patchwork Guild's AGM, coming up in June, for an exhibition of the members of the board in which they are supposed to prove that they can, indeed, quilt. This exhibition was initiated by our president Barbara after she had been hearing comments from quilt guild members that they thought the members of the board weren't really quilting anymore, just trying to make themselves important. For a while I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but because we had a prescribed size for which I could not pull out a quilt from my stack, I had to make something new. Plus I had the ambition to show something new. But it took a while until I had an idea. Now it is finished except for a few little stitchy touches.

text messages 11: yes, I can artquilt

And I am already working on the next piece in the series, text messages 12. That one, however, I plan to enter in the SAQA regional exhibition Made in Europe 2, for which the entry process opened today, so I won't post a picture here yet.

I have been doing longarm comissions, here is a detail of one of them.

I like quilting traditional quilts with the longarm machine. It is relaxing!

When I was taking off a few strands from a vest which just didn't please me as part of the design, I started thinking whether these could perhaps be useful in the 70,273 project.

But I admit that not much has happened in that direction beyond the thought.
Then I spent days frantically trying to catch up with the dyeing of my March-collection. The shipment of fabrics had been seriously delayed, by several weeks, and I only managed to ship the finished collection three weeks into April, when usually I try to get it out by the end of the month.

Now I am getting ready to go to Nadelwelt in Karlsruhe for the weekend.

In any case - I am still alive. And looking forward to spending my birthday on the road going to Karlsruhe, and then setting up the stand...

Trees

For me, trees are a constant source of fascination. When I travel, I see possibilities for daily photo projects in tree arrangements, as in this threesome, which I caught a few days ago when my husband and I were in Bad Wörishofen.

Or our Magnolia tree in the garden, which, for the first time in the almost twelve years that we have been living in this house, has managed to bloom without all the flowers being destroyed by onsetting rain right after the blossoms opened up.

Or color combinations like this in the spring which convince me that spring is definitely the nicest season - while it's on - ...

Yesterday I went for a bike ride in the area and finally found a very nice beech tree that meets all my requirements for the next daily art tree - except for the fact, that it is not in biking distance to be covered every day.

Would it be ok to go there only once a week? Have to think about that...
Happy Easter to everyone!

Article in Patchwork Professional Magazine

Th enewest issue of the Patchwork Professional Magazine is out, and it includes my article on how to make the best of unique snow-dyed fabrics.

If you can find a copy somewhere, check it out!

TAFA mapping the world

I have been a member of the TAFA-list for a few years now (here is a link to my TAFA-profile), and when Rachel Biel mentioned that she was preparing a blog post on maps I notified her of one of my recently finished quilts in the series text messages. I love maps, looking at maps (including mind traveling), and we have old prints of maps and geographical subjects on our living room wall.

on top: an old print of Ratzeburg, the place where my parents met and I spent
my childhood summers visiting my grandparents;
below, left: Weilheim, where my husband grew up; and right: of the area where
my husband I got married.

If you want to surprise me and do me a favor, you can get a pretty or detailed map of one of my favorite places, or any interesting place in the world and I will be very happy!

That blog post on the TAFA-list was a little while in the making after Rachel had made the first announcement, but it is up now, and shows a number of interesting quilts and textile works on the topic of maps.
Here is a small photo of my quilt that  is featured on the TAFA-blog:

Promised Land 2015? (text messages 9)

At that point when I offered Rachel that quilt to be included in the post, I had, I think, not realized that I was already working on another quilt that would apply to the map topic as well. It was made for an article in the magazine Patchwork Professional, where I am demonstrating how my snow-dyed fabrics can be used in traditional and art quilts. The article should be out any day now, but as long as it has not been published, I will post a full picture on the blog yet. A detail, however, is well in order, I think:

Mapping the World of My Mind, detail

It is a combination of two pieces of snow-dyed fabric, and was quilted on the longarm machine.

The Falcon Hospital in Abu Dhabi

For my last full day in Abu Dhabi my friend had booked me into a tour of the Falcon Hospital near the airport.

In fact, only a few weeks before I had heard a programme on the radio with an interview of the German director of this hospital, (you can find the German podcast of the interview here) not knowing that I would actually be visiting this fascinating place now.

This photo is one of many in the display room of the falcon
hospital that show all the numerous honors and prizes
which the director, Dr. Margit Müller, has received for her
outstanding work at the hospital.

I didn't know much about falcons before my visit, and I am far from being an expert on falcons now, but I must says it was a fascinating experience, and is well worth the trip.
It was a bit of an adventure to find the exit for the falcon hospital from the highway, but we managed alright. It was a rainy day in Abu Dhabi (yes, it sometimes rains in Abu Dhabi, and I was lucky to catch one of the rare days during my short stay!).

So here are a few things I learned about falcons. They have a passport to prevent smuggling. A passport has all the personal details of the falcon, including its ring number to prove that it was bred in captivity and is not a wild falcon (those are protected and must not be caught and tamed) - but no picture.

A picture would be superfluous, or the passport would have to be renewed every year, because the falcon's feather pattern changes every year with the moulding.

They need the passport because they travel with their owners to go hunting in various countries. For traveling and any kind of transport, as well as while they are waiting for treatment at the clinic, they wear eye shades, which keeps them totally placent and quiet. You might find one sitting next to you on the plane like this.

If you're traveling First Class, I suppose...

We were allowed to watch one falcon's treatment - shortening and sharpening of its claws, inspection of wings for broken feathers, and it was demonstrated how a broken feather can actually be fixed or even replaced.

In the clinic they are also treating other kinds of birds - here is an owl whose mother had been treated, freed after treatment and kept returning to the cage until she started a nest and bred four youngsters.

And you can check in your falcon for the off-season in a free-roam cage to have it under perfect supervision for moulding season. That way you know it will be in perfect shape when you pick it up again for hunting season after moulding is over.