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.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

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.

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.

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. 😎

Weder Wordless Wednesday