Saturday, March 31, 2018

To Magdeburg

For Easter Retreat

We came home early, for health reasons, but we saw a several Luther sites along the way and had some fellowship, Bible classes, and a Good Friday service there. Here are some pictures of the historic city.

View out our hostel window

City scene painted on Hostel wall

A walk in the old part of the city. It got bombed to smithereens by the Allies, but was re-built. Fortunately the old DOM (big historic church from the 900's! pictures to come in a later post - why would anyone who is not a barbarian want to bomb such a place?) is still mostly original






This is the Hundertwasser "Green Citadel" building, intended to evoke a forest. it has tiles, glazed and not, for decorations.

from the Citadel looking toward the nearby convent church.


The " tree branch" stripes on the building are old broken roof tiles.

The columns are wonderfully colourful mixed shape glazed tiles.





Apartment, anyone?




Now a concert hall, named for Telemann, who worked here.

A randome large sphere along a walkway

These coloured confetti in the cobblestones always indicate a Fasnacht parade

The Johanniskirche with the Luther statue (lower left corner)





God's Word is with us in/for eternity.

Another view from the hostel, looking another direction.


More to Follow.
Blessings on your Holy Saturday.

Friday, March 30, 2018

Winter Quilt Guild

My quilt guild met last month and once again it was inspiring and wonderful to see all the amazing fabric art the ladies make.

The morning always starts with a "show and tell" of the lastest completed projects.







This time, for the first time since I joined, I had a quilt to show off. It was an extra special project because it was a completed UFO (UnFinished Object). Every quilter has their UFOs. Years ago I won a contest in our previous quilt guild (some of those members are in this present one) for having the oldest UFO. (It's still a UFO now too, really, really old)

This quilt was made with fabric I bought in Michigan before we moved. I wanted to have a fabric palette to work on a project in our new home. I pieced it together in the first year or two but I have spent twenty years hand quilting it in fits and spurts. I finally decided it had enough quilting and called it done. (Sorry for the poor photo taken by my friend who didn't frame the whole thing in the shot.)




After this the guild had a guest speaker who has traveled to Japan many times and attended the Japanese Quilt Show, a world renowned exhibit of the finest quilts you can imagine. She gave a slide presentation and talked about how the Japanese teach and learn the quilting art. It is a very involved process. Only highly qualified people are allowed to teach and if a teacher takes a student, she is their teacher for life with a fee paid every month for the service.








The speaker became a quilter in her fifties, after a career in the corporate world. She quickly became extremely skilled in her work. These are some of her quilts made with Japanese fabrics.

This is the back of a quilt. 




She also became an importer of Japanese fabrics. She had a selection available for purchase. These are actually vintage, antique fabrics, that were used for making the beautiful traditional clothing that Japanese women wear.

During the slide show she showed photos of a visit to the factory where they hand dye these types of fabrics.







Notice how the fabrics have the pattern on both sides, because they are dyed through and not printed.


As always, the quilt guild meeting was an enjoyable way to spend a morning.


Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Resurrection Garden

Getting Ready
Since some of us will be away at an Easter Retreat in Marburg for most of the weekend, preparations and decorating are starting ahead to be up when we return. 

My sister pointed me to this idea. 
You need one large planting pot and one small one for the empty grave. Add soil and various small plants, rocks for stepping stones, and moss to cover bare spots. Insert three twig crosses. The stone in front of the grave will be “rolled away” on Easter. 
This is a good family project.