Thursday, December 19, 2019

Taschentüchermonsters

I am still oozing goo. And coughing.  It's boring. So boring.

R has been on me to sell the things I make.  This means making things specifically to sell, since everything I make for myself is odd and/or primitive and no one will spend money for weird crap with the knots showing.  I've been experimenting with some concepts.

Story time: When I was 7 or 8 or so, someone gave me a tissue holder made of green velvet with gold sequins. I have no idea where it came from, church bazaar or Avon, who knows. I thought that was the coolest thing. Velvet and sequins were *classy* and hiding your tissues seemed so grown-up!  I never had any packs of tissues to put in it--too expensive, just fold up some tissues from the box in the bathroom for your purse and stop wanting things!--but it stayed in my box of treasures until I went to college and my little brother took over my room and everything I didn't take with me got lost or destroyed.

I didn't think about it until I moved here, where plastic tissue packs are more common than giant boxes of tissues. You even get them free at the pharmacies when you make a purchase.

Maybe other little kids would like tissue holders.

The pattern for the holder was in German (so they fit German tissues) and came from a French blog that no longer exists, linked from a Czech blog that was pinned to Pinterest.  The eyes and nose are my own design. I'm going to start putting eyes and noses on *everything*.

These are gifts. If they go over well I will make more.  I need to get some ribbons with my name to sew into the seams as a signature.

Everything needs Muppet eyes.


Sunday, December 8, 2019

Complexity

Thursday I loaded up on meds and went to the opening of an art quilt show at the Alte Gefängnis, from a local group of art quilters. They're at a much higher level than I am, international awards and such.

The main thing I noticed (and I took no pictures, only mental notes) was that their work was all very complex.  Layers of fabrics, layers of stitching, beads upon thread upon paint upon dye.

All of my training in every other part of my life--from 4-H and housework as a child to engineering school to rotary-cutter quilting and especially the latter stages of my dead career--has been about making things simpler, easier, and more streamlined. The exact opposite of what is needed to make a quilt that people want to look at for longer than half a second while scrolling through looking at juice-cleanse pins.

I'm trying to mash this into my experimentations with digital images, adding layers of varying opacity.  I don't know how to translate this into thread.

This is a photo of a sunflower. Really.

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Trying to look busy

I have reached the slime phase of my festive Advent illness, replete with incessant cough. As long as I sit motionless, I am dripping but functional. If move too quickly, it's Choke City.  Forget Outside.


I am learning* GIMP. Today I am working with layers and distortions, with no real goal in mind.



And wishing I had a fabric printer.

* Read: Messing around, trying to look busy, because I'm too sick to do useful household chores but not sick enough to lay around streaming Knight Rider.


Thursday, December 5, 2019

My Advent tradition: Respiratory infection

Monday I thought I just had a standard sinus headache, but it intensified as the day went on and remedies were applied. Tuesday morning I woke up with a measurable fever, which was maybe more exciting than it should have been. Look! Here's a number that proves I'm not just malingering! Dozed most of the day then attempted normal activity on Wednesday, possibly a mistake because today it hurts to swallow and my lungs burn when I cough. Weekend plans have been canceled.

Last year I got sick around the end of November and I wasn't normal again until the first week of January.  I had to pump myself full of medicines--real medicines from America, none of this sugar-and-herb crap from the Apotheke--to get through Christmas dinner without recreating the Slimer scenes from Ghostbusters.

We're not invited to Christmas dinner this year. 

I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Anyway, in my fevered delusional state, I have decided I will finish a quilt to enter into the 8. European Quilt Trienniale.  They don't have a website. I don't know what organization or publication I must subscribe to in order to glean entry information.  

And if I can't figure it out by next summer, I'll just delete this post. 😎

Monday, November 25, 2019

Back in the Saddle

The old laptop started blue-screening every time I edited photos with my literally 20-years-old version of Photoshop, so I stopped doing photos.

I've done stuff every week, but I haven't finished anything.

I've been making a lot of soups, which we have finished, and still flirting with the idea of a food blog.

We got a new laptop last week, shared between us. The screen is gigantic.  The keyboard can be switched between German and American so I can tweet without having to copy and paste umlauts from Zeichentabelle (that's the character map) but the punctuation is all in the wrong place so my hunt-and-peck doesn't work anymore. \itäs fun.  (thatäs a joke=

So I'm back.

Sort of.

I know y'all missed my perspective.


Friday, June 7, 2019

Facing* the Cursed Project

After finishing the "quilting" (rows of zig-zag stitch, but it holds the layers together) on the background of The Cursed Project, I decided to finish the edges before appliqueing the motif.

I did not want a ridge of binding, and I can never get nice corners with a "knife-edge" (pillow) finish.

I decided to try the triangle facing finish from Jean Wells' "Intuitive Color and Design", which I bought in 2009.  I have no affiliation with this author or publisher--and they probably don't want any, as I kept this book in the library of the smallest room for six years without doing a single exercise, which is not a particularly useful endorsement. But if you want to try this edge finish at home, Ms. Wells has drawn out nice instructions.

I cut the first border strip too short and had to start over with a fresh strip. Other than that, it was easy.


To make sure the facing was rolled all the way over to the back, I pinned it in place, steamed it, and left it pinned for three days (until it wasn't too hot to turn the iron on again 😩) and then steamed it again.  I'm in the process of hand-stitching the facing to the backside, which is going very slowly and hurts my still-healing index-finger scar.




Under the pain, I am excited to add this finish to my arsenal of techniques.

(If you liked this post, you can buy me a beer. Or just leave a comment.  Please, somebody, leave me a comment.)

* See What I Did There?

via GIPHY
.

Monday, June 3, 2019

Half-inch hexies up close


Everybody I've ever met in meatspace has forgotten me, and no one reads or likes my tweets. FUZZ is starting to act his age. It's fucking HOT outside, not a cloud in the sky.

Finger injury has progressed to "bandage unnecessary for ordinary household tasks" but the end of a hand-sewing needle goes right into the fresh scar tissue so I'm still limited.  Not that it matters, there's no point to any of this.

Also today I have posted some photos to the local group on FB that terrifies me.

Now I am going to go sit in the dark. Fucking summer.

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

This Project is Cursed



After I sliced up my right index finger on Thursday, I sulked for 48 hours, then decide maybe I could still sew with the machine.  Threading the needle took 20 minutes.  Finding the right tension and stitch width took another 20 minutes.  Finally, I was ready to go!

And after ten minutes, I ran over my right index finger with the needle of the sewing machine.  Right through the finger, to the other side, in that squishy bit next to the nail.  The needle broke off, leaving a metal shard that R had to remove with a tweezers.

I learned to use a sewing machine when I was 8.  I have been making quilted things with the machine for over 20 years.  I used to laugh at people who were worried about running over their fingers with the sewing machine, because nobody is that stupid.

I am that stupid.

What makes me extra angry is these accidents happen at 10 am, when I'm cold sober and reasonably alert.  Two beers in I can embroider past midnight without incident...

I have used the idle time looking at photographs, creating a Patreon, and watching ALF in German.

Thursday, May 16, 2019

The most boring Object I have ever Finished

This morning while I was making lovely forward progress on a new half-inch hexagon piece, I sliced open my right index finger with my lovely extra-sharp Japanese scissors. I guess what's important is I didn't drip any blood on my project, but I can't hold a pen or a needle right now and I'm angry.  I lost a month of embroidery in November after peeling a strip of skin off my left thumb in what I will call The Sweet Potato Incident, but at least I could write/sketch.

But I can still type.  Sort of. 

Shortly after Smokey died last month I finished a thing. A terrible thing, but at least a thing with a story.  The interior pieces were a door prize from my old quilt guild in 2014, a packet of 2.5-inch squares of 19th-century reproduction fabric.  Lovely, but really my style.  In 2016, we bought the rug and I had a realization.


I bought the border fabric at the Patchworkmesse in Erding. It's from the same designer/collection as the squares, which is not a thing I care about but made harmonizing easier.  After starting the border, I got stuck and let it sit around for two and a half years, mocking me.  Parts fell on my head. Stray half-hexagons got stuck to my socks.  I couldn't figure out how to make the edge straight, so finally I ripped all the half-hexagons out and performed the SHOFS (See Hexagons On the Flip Side). Gave it a good hate finish, one might say.

 It's puffy and asymmetric. It will be a pleasure to set flower pots on it.

But hey, I've got this:
It's my third finished UFO of the year, but I can't find the second.

Friday, May 10, 2019

Spring Flowers at Der Sichtungsgarten

Earlier in the week it wasn't too warm and I didn't have to cook dinner, so I spent a late afternoon hour at Der Sichtungsgarten.  Late tulips, early peonies, and the wisteria and lilacs smelled absolutely divine.

Die Pfingstrosen (peonie)

Der Flieder (lilac)


Die Tulpe (tulip)

And finally, something for you weirdos who like to look at things further than three inches from your nose--all the spring colors!

Der Blauregen (wisteria)






Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Everything is Stupid

Well, the EU Parliament just voted to make the internet read-only for its subjects who are unaffiliated with entertainment companies. I don't know how much longer I'll be allowed to upload images--or use Blogger at all, it'll be easier for Google to just wall off all the EU IP addresses--but [hippie voice] maybe the thing with creating is the creating itself and not trying to share it with human beings who live outside my house. 

[real voice] Nyah, that's bullshit. I need people to look at what I do and tell me it looks cool.

Anyway, this afternoon after it all went down I forced myself Outside into the cold, damp wind, because I keep hearing this rumor that walking through the woods can improve your mood.  The trees are being culled so fast, I'm not sure I can call it walking "through the woods" much longer. So, no improvement there. Everything is just as stupid, but now I'm frozen through and need an allergy pill.

It was too windy to use the camera's hi-def on flowers but it has some crazy artsy-fartsy-filter settings. Completely useless for identifiable photos of things, but alright for fucking around in a cemetery when you're in a bad mood anyway.

It's like a movie poster from the Weimar Era.
It's actually a quote from Francis of Assisi. "[He] who dies awakens to eternal life."

No post-processing except the watermark.
The sun came out while I was walking, but you'd never know from the photographs.

Can doves be goths?

I'll end with a straight photo--there are some very nice examples of traditional Bavarian painted metal grave decorations in this cemetery, and I want to learn more about the techniques and symbolism and heritage so I can write something serious about them someday.



Sunday, March 24, 2019

Freising Flower Outtakes

New post up at the Blog My Family Knows About But Doesn't Actually Read.

I wanted to do a "5 photos" thing like I did with the Miniatur Wunderland, but the photos didn't seem all that good. I like this photo, but what the hell is that green thing?


And I liked this one, but there's a bug in the way.



Try again sometime, I guess.

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Finished Object: Hexagon Snowflakes

I have finished something! I'm just as surprised as you are.

*Ancient Aliens voiceover* September 2017. I say I'm going to finish it, but soon realize it's horrible.

February 2019. Unfinished bits of things falling on my head combined with an anxiety attack over a complete lack of ideas force me to stare at this thing and wonder how it could be finished.

I go for my old stand-by, which I will heretoafter refer to as See Hexagons On The Flip Side (SHOFS?). I stole the method. I want all credit for the name.



It's puffy, because I didn't fuse the back to the batting, and on a small piece that seems to be a necessary step. (Unless you want puffy. I'm here to talk about myself, not judge your edge finishes.)


But it is a Finished Object, and I can give it to someone who will set flower pots on it like it came from the EuroShop or I can put it in a box.  It will not fall on my head again.

Also I got to make this neat graphic. Winning all around.


Wordless Wednesday


Monday, March 18, 2019

Today I made a GIF

I tweet too much.  I also spend a lot of time looking for animated gifs to tweet. I hardly recognize any of the stupid crap that shows up in the animated gif search on Twitter. It appears it's all from recent terrible semi-scripted television--and the worst shows get exported, so in theory I could be able to identify the Plastic Whores Of Snooty ZIP Code but I've got approximately 12 years of movies and TV created for vertebrates with central nervous systems that I haven't watched yet so why bother.

Since bitching wasn't helping, I decided to learn to roll my own. A monster has been created.



(You may also imagine that this is what I look like when I sit and tweet, except I've got a beer instead of a cigarette.)

Follow my GIPHY channel and favorite everything. When I get a dozen or so good ones, I'll apply for verification, so everyone on Twitter can see them and wonder what the hell this crap is supposed to be. HAH!

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Fastenzeit ist Starkbierzeit

In the spirit of seasonal eating, I've started a project to see how many Bock beers I can collect during Lent.  This is the general style that medieval monks in this region consumed during their 40 days of fasting; I'm opening it up to Weizenbock and Dopplebock and more (Celebrate Beerversity!).  Some of them I've enjoyed previously, some I haven't, and some are new. 😁

I've hit five so far, without even walking out of my way.

Follow my list on Untappd for latest updates.

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Unboxing the Stuffed Crust Pizza: Tex Mex

About twice a year Aldi does an "American" theme week of prepared foods. It's an interesting mix with some good stuff and some WTF.  Last month on Twitter a young academic CoastalCity-American visitor to Germany made fun of the products "Germans think Americans eat." I disagreed with some of his "not-American food" assessments (if I ate it in the Midwest in the 1980s, it's American food) but in general I am entertained by what gets labeled "American" around here.

I've tried enough of the "theme week" things over time to keep expectations low.  Frozen novelty food is disappointing. The cheap chocolate is unpleasantly waxy. And of course I'm not going to buy pre-fab pancakes or brownies because it's so easy to make amazing fresh ones at home.  I was expecting to buy only the sweet pickle relish, which tastes just like the cheap crap I grew up with and is not something found in Freising on the shelves of jars of things in vinegar.

But then I saw it:  The Stuffed Crust Pizza: Tex Mex. Made in Austria. That's not cheese in the crust, that's a 100% pork hot dog. The lack of corn is suspicious--corn where it doesn't belong is the usual signifier that a substance is "American" or "Mexican"--but also welcome.

I had to try it.


The picture looks pretty good, so let's unbox this bad boy:


Where's the cheese?!  (Shut up, brain.)  It's about 30 cm, and the box says it's 513g. I did not weigh it. The important thing is it fit on my plate. There is nothing else in the box.

This pizza contains 6.8% cheese, 4.1% ground beef, and 3.9% red bell pepper.  I cannot make this up.



I followed the directions on the package and baked at 225℃ for 16 minutes.


I chose to pair the dish with a standard Bavarian Helles, the soft white sandwich bread of beers, because its delicate lack of flavor cannot interfere with the food.

After baking, the pizza's cheese insufficiency is even more apparent.  But what about the hot dog?


Ah, there it is, snuggled into the bread with no extra cheese or sauce.  You can also see small chili flakes nestled in the ground beef topping.

So, how does it taste?

The middle is spicy-hot, there is possibly some chili oil mixed into the tomato.  I know I've said this three times, but it needs more cheese.  The crust under the beef is too thick and less crisp than I like, standard with frozen pizza.  The underside has a coating of flour I find annoying.

The hot dog is the best part of the dish, a little sweet, and not too salty.  The outer crust is very bready and reminds me of the frozen dough my grandmother would use for dinner rolls.  I want to dunk it in a cup of that yellow soy oil you get with American delivery pizza.  Not curry, though. Never curry.

The box says the whole pizza is one serving, but I was only able to finish half.

Final thoughts: As my expectations were low, I was not disappointed. I'm not breathlessly waiting for the next "American week", but neither do I regret this purchase.

I should get a Patreon. High-quality food reviews, right here. 😎