Everybody's knitting, I'm scrapping instead!

I'm happy to say that scrapbooking and quilting are complementary hobbies. Why? you ask. Because you can use Fiskars cutting mats for both! This is as good a reason as any for me to talk about scrapbooking here.

I've just picked up my albums again and really need to crack on with them. I have about four years of photos to put in - and that's those four years when I seriously got into photography ... sigh. So I attended a scrapbooking event at my local International Women's Club. It was excellent fun and got me started again. Ever since though, my massive bag is sitting right where I dropped it when I got back from said event late at night.

To help with my scrapbooking, I decided to take an art class that sort of deals with calligraphy. It's more about old fonts and proper handwriting. But it will hopefully come in handy once I journal in my albums. Can you believe that after SEVEN years of marriage, there isn't a single word written into my wedding album (here, we don't get them done professionally by the photographer, but do them ourselves)?

Off to my "to-mend-basket" so that I can pick up my quilting again tomorrow. I'm already terribly tempted to buy more fabric. That's all I ever do, it seems. Buy fabric, squirrel it away and then not do anything with it. I need my own sewing table!

Spammers beware ...

because my blog now has a new feature to keep automatic comments away, let's see if it works.

Moth balls!?!

The question I actually meant to put out there - just before my mind side-tracked me - is this:

how does everybody deal with moths? Do they even exist where you are? Do you use artificial moth repellents? Sandal wood? Lavender?

I have my own fabric to think of and then my husband dropped the last two metres - ever! - of vintage upholstery fabric for his vintage (dare I say it?) Porsche in my lap. It's a gorgeous tweed and needs to be stashed away for future car seat maintenance. It must not under any circumstances become moth fodder!

Any thoughts?

Getting back onto the horse

I'm slowly, ever so slowly getting back onto the horse with quilting. Googling my local town and nearest big city in connection with the term quilting has churned out an excellent online and offline shop (needless to say, I've already placed an order at Patchcom.de as well as a few leads on local quilting groups. The largest, The Black Forest Quilters at this time unfortunately does not accept any new non-military members, which seems to have something to do with quotas and what-not for their being accepted as an official guild. And then, the inimitable Mrs Mel pointed me in the direction of Kristin LaFlamme, who lives a lot closer to me than to most of you out there. We're actually less than two hours away from each other and I will start campaigning for a non-military personnel class of her's before she ups sticks and moves away.

But for now it seems that I will have to make do with local German quilting groups, which is just as well.

Furthermore, I've traced the next sections of my embroidery design onto paper for it to be transfered onto fabric and stitched at some stage. Because one day, this shall become a present for my mum.

I have now not done any quilting for 2 1/2 months and I am feeling the emotional effects of it. I only realised this recently but quilting - the fact that at night I do something I love that is pretty much purely hedonistic, yet creative in the literal sense of the word - has become a sort of medication to me. It helps me keep my sanity. And because it is something none of my friends or relatives (can) do, I gain a sense of accomplishment from it that is enormously beneficial to my somewhat shredded sense of self (-esteem).

Once I get the "den" (a.k.a. basement a.k.a. office) in shape, I also hope to be able to continue painting. I am full of ideas but lack the work space. How I long for my own creative space!

Alhambra Impressions

On a recent visit to Spain, I've been to the Alhambra in Granada. I don't think I have ever seen anything this beautiful. We had a fabulous guide who took the time to explain the idea behind the building as well as all the little architectural intricacies. During its hey-day, the Alhambra was the centre of pan-religious understanding, a liberal place that brought together Christians, Jews and Muslims to further their understanding of one another.

I've been especially taken by the intricate tiling, which all dates back roughly 650 years:









What a nice way to divert from the fact that I haven't made a single stitch in two months.

The state of things ...

I don't think I've quilted since my last post. We moved house in late August and I also went to Shanghai. Then we got a new au pair, our first, from Iowa, she's lovely! Having Laura is quite a relief to me but having moved means that I spend my spare time struggling with boxes. The den is in the process of getting into shape. My office desk area looks horrendous and needs to get sorted really quickly, otherwise I'll be receiving many angry letters asking for money long over-due. Then there are all those boxes filled to the hilt with fabric, yarn, batting, paints, canvasses, photos, scrapbooking supplies, inspirational items, mementoes, diaries, more photos ...

Deadline is early next week when my best friend comes to stay for one night on a business trip - the den doubles up as a guest room.

I did empty 18 boxes today, that's good, isn't it?! Now I need to go to IKEA to get some more shelving. ...

How to make an American Quilt

This is what my quilting has been reduced to recently: telly! But at least the theme was spot-on! I had read the book eons ago and didn't really warm to it at all. Now I came across the dvd at a very good price on Amazon so I thought I'd get it. Well, the story's still kinda flat but I liked the sections on quilting, the process, the old lady's lecture on composition and the dynamics of the quilting bee. Too bad we don't have that here!