Lineanongrata

becoming a better person

'Dogs again' you think. But the picture is there because I can't post pictures of what this post is actually about.
Because it's a secret !

If you are my sister Hanna, you may read this post, but you shouldn't click on any link and under no circumstance should you head over to my Flickr page. Really, don't. You'd spoil it for both of us.

For all the rest of you, if you would like to see pictures of what all this is really about, head on over here. And here, keeping in mind that it will be my sister's birthday on July 29th. Now that I think about it, you should have a peek at this, too, because Amy makes such beautiful things.

At this point my family is howling with laughter because I managed to start a gift three weeks before the birthday. That's a first. Usually I come home and tell everybody 'I've got such a neat gift for you, I just need time to make it'. In June, when it's a christmas gift, for example.
So bets are probably up that I'll get home with something half-finished that I need to finalize in the wee hours before my sister's actual birthday. We'll see.
They'll see. I'll try. To be a better person, in at least one tiny way.

If you comment, could you please not mention the words (the q-word, for example) that would reveal to Hanna what she's going to have ? You may break out in admiring 'oh's and 'ah's and we'll just have a good time all together without her, discussing the roundabout... something.

That's evil, isn't it ? Having people in more than three countries know what she'll get and pretending all the while that I do it only to be a better person ?

we'll probably pay rent at the veterinarian's very soon

Would anyone care to take a guess as to how many times I have been at the Vet's last month ?

An unbelievable six times, the checkups and pulling out of stitches and picking up of sick dogs after a day's observation not counted.

One with a fever, one with herbs in her ears, one with a head that almost got bitten off and one with a herb that got under his skin and had to be taken out.

Every time the same show: Only Orion would jump in the car on his own. The other two had to be lifted (! by me !). Once I have them at the Vet's, they'll start whining incredibly loud until my ears fall off and everybody looks at us accusingly.
On the way home they have to be lifted in the car again, by me.
And now I have one that looks as though he had a zipper around his throat and when you open it, his head falls off.
And the other who looks as though he put on his Tuxedo to take his girlfriend to the Prom.

'He should rest' the Veterinarian said.
'Sure', I think, the question is just: How ?

patience, my dear

'Patience makes a woman beautiful in middle age' , Elliot Paul.

And a wise man he was, indeed.

By the time I finish my Ohio star quilt, I might indeed be a middle-aged woman. But I will look beautiful, huddled up on a decorative couch, wrapped in my new quilt. Indeed.

Or do you think one should consider oneself middle-aged at thirty one ? Because if that is the case, I'll be old-age when I finished the quilt.

But then, maybe patience is completely overrated as a virtue. I'll tell you more about that when I'm about half way through quilting.

 

when somebody calls and says 'why don't you come right now'...

...that's almost too much for me. If possible, I need to be forewarned days in advance.

If possible, I need to know in the morning where I'll sleep that evening.

If you call and say 'come right now', I'll cling to what I had planned. And if there was nothing planned, I'll still cling. To not going.

No fancy explanation. I don't know why.
If you call me to a place with many people I don't know, who know each other, I'll feel overwhelmed. And will probably want to go home.

I sadden myself that way, knowing that when I leave, I'll miss so many things.

Who can say in advance what one would see, whom one would meet, if one, I, just had the courage to stick with it ?

This weekend I was glad to have heard some wonderful concerts in memory of Scott Ross.

And I was glad to have met some amazing people. Whom I didn't know before. But who knew each other before I arrived and just pretended I belonged with them.

an attempt at cute

Well, cute and decorative. Two things I usually don't do well.
But I've been thinking about new products for the shop. Like bookmarks or some kind of jewelery, or new notebooks, and am trying out new things.

It's funny because I always like the 'simple' images. You know the ones: An assembly of teacups. Or sketches of birds... just one thing in one illustration. Decorative and pretty.
It seems so easy. But it seems almost impossible for me to make. Whenever I try to deal in cute, sarcasm creeps in.

If any of you know how to do decorative or cute, let me know. Or better still: Make a tutorial. Cute for dummies.

...there we go again. Sarcasm all over the place.

crafting for myself

In the last couple of months I have made so many things for other people (let's not talk about finishing Christmas presents in June), that I almost forgot what it feels like to make something just for myself. And something without any imminent use, at that.

It's the puzzle ball from 'Last-minute patchwork and quilted gifts' by Joelle Hoverson. A pattern I have been looking at for some time but which seemed rather complicated.

Now that I have tried I can tell you that it's not complicated at all, and it's fascinating to sew something '3D'.
On one of the blogs I read (sorry, but I forgot which one. That must be the age. Once you're over thirty memory goes down the drain, it seems.) somebody suggested that this is a great gift for babies. Helpful in developing tactile skills and the like. It is also a very good gift for thirty one year old adults, though. It's pretty and a pleasure to touch and to hold, and what more can you ask of a gift... to yourself ?

All right, I do have to admit that you can't cover yourself with a puzzle ball. Or snuggle up in it.

Like Vincent when he goes to sleep with his new quilt. Whom I envy just enough to have started sewing my own quilt.

I'm feeling traditional, can you tell ?

tadaa

I mean: TADAAAAAA !

As in 'an entire-herd-of-elephants-tadaaa'.

Please meet my first entire big (huuuuuge) quilt.

Don't ask me if this is a queen size. When I was in London the Queen wasn't there to have tea, so it don't matter much to me whether or not this is a queen size.
What matters is that it covers the whole length of a boy's long feet and body.

Because this is Vincent's quilt. Therefore the boy colors.
He did chose the red, last fall in Barcelona. Not for a quilt precisely, but he still likes it. Or else he doesn't dare tell me now.

I used some new and some vintage fabric and absolutely love how impossible fabrics (the apples on dark blue, for example, are from out of space if you see an entire meter of the fabric, but cut up in pieces they're quite acceptable. So are some of my grandparents old dishtowels.) suddenly melt with the entire piece and become not only acceptable, but beautiful.
The backing used to be a duvet cover in an anterior life, worn but not so much it couldn't stand some more years of wear and tear.
The batting is a lovely cotton/linen mix from Retrosaria. Very thick and makes lovely 'sheep' or 'snowflakes' if you leave the quilt out too long without binding it. Sheep everywhere you look. My studio and my clothes were covered in fuzz. I breathed it in, and was still ridiculously happy about it. Go figure.

Just one question remains: How do you photograph a quilt so it doesn't look boring ?

finishing it

One week in London at the International Wine Fair left us exhausted, but it did give me the chance to meet the wonderful Janet. The first time I met someone I only knew via the blog world, and it was an absolutely wonderful day. She took me to see Liberty's, and just looking at dresses that cost more than 600 GBP was quite an experience. So was rummaging through their fabrics, and I had to restrain myself from not buying every single one.
My mother is one of my readers (always wondering about the amount of fabric I just absolutely need for survival), so I can't tell you how much I really did buy.

I don't know how many of you have already been to Janet's blog, if you haven't, you should go right now. She's a designer and makes quilts (and other items) that are really very beautiful. I was lucky to get this tea cozy as a gift and it makes me wish I were patient enough to stitch things as detailed as these birds.

Since we got back home to France we had a great deal of bottling going on around here, which is always emotionally draining because so many things can go wrong.
Besides that a team of craftsmen is renovating one of the houses on the winery and it seems they need constant attention, which is taking up most of my time at the moment (they don't do a lot of planning beforehand and are often wrong about the quantities needed of certain products, and that drives me to distraction).

In the evenings I am usually too tired to illustrate or do things that involve a great lot of thinking. So I started finishing all the projects I started and have never brought to completion (Clutch from Amy Butler's Institches).
It's soothing in so many ways, diminishing the piles of things with loose threads, pins and needles poking in every direction,

thereby lessening the amounts of 'ouches' that can be heard from my studio (Sweater: Duck Soup from Jujube and Lolo, my absolute favorite for kids) .

A finished project is a thousand times calmer than one on progress, visually but also in my head. It doesn't cry out 'I'm still here ! You still haven't gotten around to my threads and needles !' every time it sees me. Unfinished projects are annoying that way.

Now I just have to give all these newly finished things away and I'll feel much better with the world. After all, these were supposed to be Christmas presents. For 2008. Ahem.

Oh, and by the way: Ernie called and told me to say 'hi'.

a walk

This post is titled 'a walk', but it might have been 'a week's worth of photos' or 'what we love'. Because at the moment I don't have a lot of time to post or even to think about the things that are happening, but there is one hour that is more or less always the same. The one hour I reserve for taking a walk  with the dogs.

It's usually a solitary hour (even though there are four of us) where I feel strongly about nature and see so many things changing incredibly quickly over a week or so.

I love how there Irises are just there. All of a sudden.

I love the geometry of the first spring green in the vineyard.

'Drinking while walking right in it' is a huge favorite. For some of us. It's difficult to restrain myself. But I've yet to give in.

It's amazing how rain is omnipresent. It's either here, or we're waiting for it. That's as 'May' as it will get.

I wonder about the grasses. Can oats really be growing already ? Grasses are something I associate so much with fall.

I love the feeling of 'this is the South'. This is the South because of the small huts, because of the vineyards. Because of the smells. Because of the ever changing sky. Because of the birds and the cicadas.

We love playing 'where is the 45 kg doggy ?'.

How lovely is seeing the sky after the day spent in front of the computer...

watching my mother fall asleep over a book,

finishing a child's sweater ?

But nothing is as funny as seeing what Akbar left for the cat after a raid on the cat food. Really, that's my absolute favorite.

We're off to London for a trade fair next week. Cross all your fingers and toes so that we'll find an importer.
I hope I'll find a moment to post. Because I'll meet a very special person I've never met before. My first blog friend meeting ever. I'm incredibly excited. Janet, I'm on my way for cake, coffee and London ! And a no-boy day.

thick as thieves, and bullheaded as, well, bulls

The friend who had been staying with us when these two were born has visited us again in April and thought they were two different dogs. Which they are, in a way. They're what grew out of those palm-sized tiny fuzz balls. But they're still Wind and Akbar. Six months and a half older than the last time my friend saw them.

Ripping things apart is still their mission in life. We clean it up every other day, but they come up with something new to destroy all the time. I have no idea where they find the stuff. Mainly because by the time I see it, it doesn't resemble anything I have ever owned.

Last week Vincent went to visit his parents for three days and my private menagerie chose this moment of all to disappear.
For 48 hours.
Leaving me alone at this place during one entire night. I tried watching soothing movies and reading uninteresting books. But I still didn't sleep all that much and woke up with a pair of black rings under my eyes that would have pleased Dracula's girlfriend but cost me a considerable amount of make next morning.

Not that I think that one of the puppies would defend me when it came to that, they're more likely to slobber someone to death, but I would not like to see anyone try to harm me in Orion's presence. Ever.
But Orion, too, was gone. I suspect he was trying to lead Akbar and Wind far away from home so that they might lose themselves and never find their way back. Like in 'Hansel and Gretel', only that he didn't find the convenient witch to take the puppies in.
After the first twelve hours I started to be scared, with various story-variations playing out in my head. In which either one of the dogs or someone else was hurt. You never know. And just imagine taking a comfortable stroll on a beautiful afternoon and running into two slobbery and exuberant monsters, each weighing about 45 kg !
In 48 hours I had time to call all surrounding mayor's offices, the humane society, the vet's office... told the post office lady, the bar-owner and the grocery store man all about two runaway dogs. In the most inconspicuous words I could imagine.
Downplaying the word 'big'. Putting a lot of emphasis on 'gentle'.

And then they came running back, exactly 48 hours later. Grinning, if dogs can grin, happy, not at all hurt and not the least bit starved or exhausted.

Sometimes I wish it was the neighbor's guinea pig that had had young ones in my back garden.

'Oh, please excuse me, but if you see two guinea pigs running around, you know, small little guinea pigs, those are ours. Yes, yes, they're really gentle. In case you see them, would you please call this number so I can come pick them up ? Yes, they're always together and they are a little bullheaded, but still, very gentle.'

generally cute

This is absolutely not for me, so don't get your hopes up. One of Vincent's many cousins just had a baby girl. And with a name as beautiful as 'Juliette' (and as resembling my own so very marvelously) the new little baby should be offered the cutest outfits possible.
That's only logic.

Maybe the apple buttons on cherry fabric make something of a fruit salad, but it's a cute one, if you ask me. So that should be allowed. Actually, IF you ask me, I would probably be able to justify a lot of things.
Like why people with hypoglycemia should eat store bought cookies with refined sugar.
Or why a girl needs to buy more sewing books, cook books or just reading books (a matter of some urgency, always. What, if one ran out of books ?!).
Why one can't give away one of the puppies when one knows they'll grow up to weigh 70 kg ? The list goes ever on and on.

Why you should go over and have a look at the Lineanongrata shop, for example, is a good one, too.

Well, you see, there are these monstrously cute buttons that just arrived...

Everybody needs a button (don't they ?).

Right.

beautiful discoveries

Simply beautiful. I discovered it via Megan of the scent of water a while ago.

It's actually so beautiful I bought one for my brother and sister, too. It reminds me so much of our grandfather.
The one photo with the false teeth, especially. Somehow my grandfather had a tendency to forget to put them into his mouth. I wonder how that will feel like, one day when I'm old. False teeth.
I wonder if I might forget to put them in, too.
And I wonder if my grandchildren (if I have some) will laugh just as much as we did, upon seeing a water glass with false teeth emerging from behind a door, the grandfather belonging to the teeth following, sputtering and laughing because such a simple thing can make grandchildren hiccup with laughter like a flock of small birds.

And then today, I can't even remember by what detour, I discovered this blog. Another story entirely. Much sadder. But just as beautiful.

if - impossibility

It's been a while and I'm sorry for that. After my return from the funeral and then Italy there was such a mountain of work waiting for me to catch up that I did neither get to read all your blogs, nor to update mine.
It might seem impolite and selfish, but I'll start with my own blog and hope to progress to catching up with yours this week.
But I want to thank you all for your comforting comments and warmhearted emails during the last two weeks. Even if I haven't answered them all yet, they were all read with gratitude and thankfulness.

So now about Illustration Friday's 'impossibility'. I wonder who comes up with these impossible words.
But rain from below, falling into puddles from the downside, is an impossibility. Have you ever thought about the consequences, rain from below would have ?
How inconvenient, because your average umbrella just isn't made for that occasion.
Only wellies are really up to that kind of incidence, really. They're opening is upside, so rain from down below can't fall into them.
Should we consider then, the possibility that wellies are not made for rain falling from above ?

If this hurts year head, the fault is all Illustration Friday's.

Elsa

 

Thank you all for your kind comments on my last post.

Our grandmother Elsa was almost 92 when she passed away and hadn't recognized any of us for years. When we celebrated her 90th birthday she had a moment, somewhere between 4 and 5 am when she suddenly knew who I was, but every time I have seen her since, she was surprised by yet another stranger in her home (and if you wonder what on earth I was doing awake between 4 and 5 am, I can only say that I wasn't the only one and that 90th birthdays should be celebrated in style).
Considering the fact that she must always have thought that her home was a strange place with people she didn't know walking through every day, sometimes taking things from her kitchen ('I'll bring it back right away, Grandma'), sometimes just telling her how beautiful her new haircut was, our grandmother was a very relaxed and happy person in her last years.
When we talked about her life after the funeral, the cousins, my siblings and I suddenly realized how little we knew about her. The first half of her life was not an easy one. But in her last years she was much calmer, usually in good spirits and friendly almost all the time.
One of the funniest stories we remembered after the funeral was about when she was at the hospital with a broken arm. Before the operation a young doctor told her all about what he was going to do, if or if not it would hurt, how she would heal, etc. It took him more than five minutes during which my grandmother looked at him owlishly.
When he was finished she looked at him with a stern expression and said: 'Young man, I'm not going to buy a rug anyway !'
I wonder if, wherever she is now, she remembers us, thinking something in the line of 'oh, I remember now. That last postcard was from Daniel, Rolf's son !'
Wouldn't that be nice ?

away

It has been a moment since you heard from me, friends, I know.
The bottling adventures have taken a lot of time on the winery, and it is also trade fair season. I went to Germany last Friday for an important wine trade fair.
It went very very well, but we unfortunately learned Sunday evening that our grandmother had passed away in the morning.
We buried her today. I'm at my aunt's home, with all the family. We meet so rarely that, although the occasion is a sad one, it's still nice to see them.
Tomorrow my family will leave for another wine trade fair in Verona, in Italy. Our parents will work, my siblings and I will have a couple of days to shop, eat together and just talk.
You will probably not hear from me until after the seventh, but then hope to have many new things to tell you.