"Metamorphoses XI" for Africa

When we had the art exhibit in shop windows of our little town in May that I reported about on my German blog, the organizer of it all had also suggested that every participating artist donate one of their works for an art auction. The revenues of this auction were supposed to be donated for a help organization for children with cancer.

I had donated a quilt from my series ‚Metamorphoses’:

Metamorphoses XI: Weber's Gold

Metamorphoses XI: Weber’s Gold was made in 2006, after I had been given a few pieces of golden-colored silk. They had been cut for a dress, which had never been finished. These pieces were the original inspiration for this quilt, and the donator’s name (Weber) also led to the quilt’s name.

All of the donated pieces of art had been on display in one of the shop windows during the days before the scheduled auction date. However, on the day of auction it rained heavily, there were hardly any people there to attend the auction, and the whole thing was cancelled. At first it wasn’t clear whether it was only postponed or had been called off entirely. By now, however, the „Kultursommer“-festival is over and it is not clear whether there will be another good occasion for such an event.

A few days later I was approached by the director of the kindergarten where my son has been going for the past four years. She and her colleague would have liked to bid in the auction for my quilt because they had decided that this finally was the piece they had been looking for for their office, what was going to happen with it? I checked back about a new date for the auction, and when I found out that that was most likely not going to happen, we agreed that she would be very happy to buy the quilt for the minimal bid that had been set for the auction.  This is a wonderful way for me to say thank you for four years of loving caretaking of my son.  The director had made it very clear that she was happy to give me the money directly and thus let me have the benefits from the sale. However, I have decided to donate the money nevertheless. I have been very much affected by the news from Somalia, and especially by the numbers of children in need, malnourished or dyeing. So I topped up the amount I received for Meamorphoses by a good part of the profits I made during the last month of good sales and chose the Welthungerhilfe  instead to help alleviate the suffering in Africa’s East. It's little enough that I can do.

Ice-Cube-Dyeing: Report in German "Patchwork Professional" magazine

In December I wrote about our heaps of snow, their effect on my dyeing, and presented a few results. When I was busy ironing the first wonderfully colorful and lively results I started thinking about water and its functionality in dyeing. 

Experiment with snow, this time in a flower pot...

These thoughts turned into a sort of meditation, after all I was still ironing the traditional way, not my most favourite activity in the world and one has to do one’s best to enrich that time...

Waiting to be ironed: snow-dyed fabrics on the line

That meditation centered on the state of matter of water, and the influence that might have on the behavior of dyes, and on the results of dyeing processes. When I was finished with my ironing and at the end of my meditation, I had come up with a new idea: ice-cube dyeing.

A few days of experimenting followed, as I still had a sufficient supply of soda-ash-soaked fabric from my snow-dyeing. Our ice-cube trays had been sitting idly in our kitchen cupboards anyway (we usually have a bottle of water in the fridge, that’s cold enough for us.) 

When I had found out what I was doing, I contacted the German magazine Patchwork Professional. The result is now in print – the newest edition hit the newsstalls yesterday.

Title page of the newest edition (03/2011)
 of Patchwork Professional magazine

View inside the magazine

I will probably give a (sort of) English translation of the workshop article here later in the fall.

Meanwhile you can buy fabrics that have been dyed with this technique via my website justcolours.de (sorry – in German only…), under the tag „Stoffunikate“ (unique fabrics). The site is updated frequently, whenever I have a new stack of fabrics finished. Check it out, and enjoy!

Inspirational pictures

Some inspirational pictures from my recent stay in Switzerland.

Whoever would have thought…

Life is full of surprises. And the best surprises are those that one gives oneself, taking decisions one would never have thought oneself able to. Or doing things one would never have thought possible. When I was a student in Freiburg way back I wouldn’t have believed I would end up in Bavaria. Now I know that it’s not at all a bad place to live. Not to mention some slightly more private matters I don’t want to talk about here.

So here is the newest surprise in my life: ironing is fun!

Excuse me? Yes, ironing is fun. I am a regular at the dry cleaner’s with my husband’s shirts because I hate ironing, and for my own clothes I usually choose to hang them up dripping wet, taking no offense at a few wrinkles, just to avoid ironing, and now this? Of course pressing seams when sewing a new quilt – fine, that’s ok. Ironing newly hand-dyed fabrics in order to give them their final shape, yes, that’s ok, too, But fun?

Well – I have a ‘new’ rotary iron. Of course, it is old, because I have inherited it from an elderly lady preparing to move to a retirement home. But it is just about wide enough for my fabrics.

I had been asking virtually everybody whether they knew of somebody who would be willing to part with their rotary iron. But nobody wants to give up theirs. But finally, in April, my friend Nina gave a positive answer, she knew somebody who would want to give up hers in the fall. I made it very clear that I would be very interested – and a few days later she called back I could have it now, all we had to do was organize the transport.

Kindly enough Nina engaged her nephew to help, and my husband was also willing. Little did we know what we had got ourselves into!

These things are HEAVY! And we had to take it down one flight of stairs first, put it into the car, and then down into the cellar.

on the way down

When they were half-way down the stairs I was ready to give up, pull it back up and put it somewhere in the living room on the ground floor, I was so afraid that thing would fall off the cart and crush the two persons holding it from below. But they did manage to get it down safe and sound in the end. My husband complained about an aching shoulder for a few days and threatened to divorce me if I ever wanted another transport of a rotary iron done by him. But it’s there.

The 'new' machine...

And I have used it.

And it is fun…

Daily Oak - middle of month extra

On the day of my return from Switzerland we had a tremendous thunderstorm in the evening. And I managed to catch Daily Oak with an impressive rainbow, although from a perspective which is not part of the art project. The rainbow extended for the complete half circle, which, however, my camera could not handle.

Workshop with Nancy Crow – viewed in retrospection

Day before yesterday I returned home from my two-week-stay in Falera (CH), where I participated in two workshops by Nancy Crow and translated two workshops by Jan Myers-Newbury.

results from shibori class drying on the line

my first attempts at shibori...

Because some of my boxes are supposed to be stored in a room where a guest of ours is sleeping I have not unpacked the car yet. But this morning I took out my notebook from another workshop with Nancy Crow which I took a couple of years ago and which had a similar topic („Figure/Ground Composition“) and tried to compare what we did then with this workshop („Lines, Curves, Circles, Figure and Ground“). I had consciously not looked at the older notebook before leaving for Falera, because I wanted to approach this new class with a clear mind.

It was very noticeable that the design exercises differed a lot, both classes were structured on a different principle. For one thing, we did not do any black-and-white studies a few years ago, and we were supposed to bring some inspirational pictures, which had not been asked for this time around.

"The Walks of Life in Yellow" -
 finished quilt from a figure/ground workshop
with Nancy Crow four years ago

I have to admit that I had found the figure/ground class a very difficult one then, and I still think it is one of the most challenging parts of composition in my quiltmaking. However, during this class I sometimes had the feeling that the whole problem got more and more complicated if I think about it too consciously. I don’t want to say that working from the guts is always the best way in this matter, but certainly a lot of careful thinking doesn’t make it any easier. It is definitely an aspect that will keep me on my toes for a long time to come.

This time, I had started the last design exercise almost a whole day later than all the others. I had fallen behind due to the interpreting, and had decided that I wanted to finish the second exercise before I started on the last one instead of taking it back in pieces. At least that I managed.

First sketches for the last exercise were put to paper during a nice chat with my house-mates after dinner.

Nancy pretty quickly approved of them, with the addition „We’ll have to see what it looks like when you put it up on the wall first, though.“ So although I did feel a few reservations about cutting more black shapes, I did go about it, put up a first design,, and was pushed a bit by Nancy to make it better before she gave me a ‘go ahead’.

Black-and-white design for last exercise in workshop

When receiving the instructions I definitely had the feeling that the result of this exercise could look nothing better than a workshop piece, which had not exactly enamoured me of it. The last exercise in the earlier class had been much more openly formulated and resulted in individual and original designs, whereas already the three-part format that was a strict given this time must result in much look-alike. Add to that the “use as may colours as possible”, and you get many tops that somehow look alike. 

Nevertheless, I did begin putting my design into fabric, and I might even go ahead and continue to sew it. For one thing, I want to practise and familiarize myself with a new technique that I learned about. But I also think that I could definitely learn a lot by pushing this one through. It might look just like a workshop piece in the end after all. But that’s ok. That’s what workshops are for, to learn something, and then to have a piece which reminds you of the fact that you did learn that thing doing exactly this piece.

I hope that these two weeks will reamin with me for a while – and not only because of sewing this top together and finishing the other three that are completely sewn.

First attempt at Arashi Shibori

During my hours with the dyeing class with Jan Myers-Newbury I got to borrow a pole and try my hands at a first piece of Shibori. It was an ugly fabric before - although I haven't figured out yet, how I would use it, I think it looks much better now.