Murphy's Law

Sometimes life gives you lemons. That's ok. But it is not so easy to turn those damn lemons into lemonade without electricity. What happened? Just after breakfast last Thursday, our Vodafone Easy Box died. And it proved not so 'easy' to get a replacement. It meant no land-line, limited internet via mobile and no printing of documents. Routers prove to be quite key-elements in the running of a small business! And when on Monday the new Easy Box finally arrived, we had no electricity... What had happened? We still have a temporary mains after the fire burned down the farm and with it the electricity cables connecting our place to the grid. The temporary mains lies as a thick black cable in our garden. In comes the farmer's grand-son with the riding mower.... Yup, he severed the cable. Luckily nobody got harmed. In came the cable knotters of the electricity company and all is well now!

On with the big news I was hinting at last week: I have been invited to teach and lecture at the National Silk Museum in Hangzhou, China! They wish to learn more about European embroidery techniques and their history. I am going to teach them workshops on crewel embroidery, goldwork embroidery and Schwalm embroidery. And I've even gotten permission from my teacher Verena Schiegg to teach them some Appenzeller fine whitework embroidery. And since I won't be in China for ever, I've videotaped each project from start to finish. After much trial and error, I have found a way to make quite good videos in which you see me stitch and where I'll talk you through the project. It is all low-key: You might hear some background noises (especially snoring cats!) and my hands are occasionally stained from work in the garden :). But I think they might prove to be the solution for those of you who have been gently nagging me about online classes. I will release them in the autumn after I have been to China. How does that sound?

The other big news is that I will hold my first solo-exhibition August next year! The Pfannerhaus Museum in Roßhaupten has been organising art exhibitions for some years now. As my current portfolio does not easily fill both rooms available, I am thinking up new embroidery pieces and will soon start stitching them. I am quite excited about this opportunity to showcase my work!

And now I am going to start a marathon session of making red current jam. My husband is picking them in the garden and will soon bring them in for processing. Note: we don't like the taste of red currants. However, I've found a recipe that explicitly states that the result does NOT taste of red currants. You add a banana and you are left with a very pretty pink jam that tastes lovely. I've been making it for some years now :).