Monday, January 12, 2009

To be considered -- and: A glimpse of my drawer

A great posting on clothes, waste of material and poverty in the world

Found
If I'd walk around with documents, I'd like to use a document container like this.

Hoping to find...

... a gouache in a brilliant magenta or purple. Whenever you visit an art material shop, you find the paints from a German company who rule the scene. Dull colours! Dulldull. In a jam jar I kept some brilliant purple, I don't remember who produced it, but it proves it can be done. I sent a sample to a South German company who trade English gouaches, asking them to pick the right colour from their scale.
The most popular German gouache is produced along with a line of printing colours for industrial printing. They don't stick to Pantone, they have their own system.
German designers obviously don't need bright tones. I yearn for them. English gouache is not for sale all over Northern Germany! I just couldn't believe it, I searched in virtual and physical shops for months. The sad truth: You cannot obtain brighter colours by blending them. They are like chemical elements. You have them, or you don't. You can't produce them. My hope is that the young generation of designers will demand brighter shades.

Another sad truth: You can't buy crewel wool in Germany. I bought brightly dyed sock wool, cut it up and untwisted the thread to obtain crewel wool. I bought all kinds of old stocks from a fine embroidery wool which they stopped producing 10-15 years ago. Now I got a whole drawer full of these beautifully strong dyed wool skeins. I love and use them. I hope to be using them until I have to give up embroidering, hopefully in the distant future. It is ridiculous, I act like those people who experienced two wars. "Keep it! You never know what you may need it for!"
It is fun to go shopping. But shopping doesn't make sense if the drawers are full! Very helpful and a guarantee to have this kind of fun in the future: I keep forgetting what I bought in the past. I open my drawer, and to my great pleasure and surprise find many nice things. I call this occupation "self-archaeology".

10 comments:

Diane Cransac said...

I can so empathize with your frustration in not being able to find certain things here. It doesn't help any that I have been spoiled rotten living in or near big cities in America most of my life.I had anything I could dream of right there at my fingertips. I had no idea how privileged I was. Since coming here I have ran into dead end after dead end trying to find different art and sewing supplies.
This is one solution that has helped me acquire many of the things I needed. I set up a paypal account and I started searching things out on ebay. Ebay in the USA and Ebay in England. They have a large amount of items such as the ones you are looking for. The great thing about having paypal is all I have to do is click pay now and it converts my currency and pays for the item. Many of the sellers on Ebay do offer reasonable shipping terms, some dont...but I just pass them by :) I just make sure that the seller has a good rating 97% or higher to make sure I am dealing with someone reliable and if they do have less then 100% rating I go read their reviews to find out why. I just bought a 50 yard assortment of silk ribbons for ribbon embroidery for around $12. (thats the other great thing...your euro goes a lot farther when converted to dollars) Sorry this post is so long but I hope it was helpful! ~Diane

Eva said...

Thank you very much, Diane! Especially about currency. The conversion into $ compensates some of what we were stolen by the conversion into Euros. If I think back to Deutschmark... well, these are my golden memories.
The trouble with art paints: if you try to by a very special shade of colour online, you get tons of the wrong stuff if you don't know name or number of the desired item! Colour samples online are almost always false.

Eva said...

corr. if you try to buy

Chris Gray said...

I'm very lucky in that I can get whatever I want/need from a few really great shops within 30 minutes of home. Not that I NEED to buy anything for a while - my workroom is so full with stuff, it should last the rest of my lifetime!
It is good to have such a choice of materials at hand though - it allows you to create easily. I LOVE MY STASH!

Kay Koeper Sorensen said...

I love the term "self archeology"!
I've been doing a lot of that latelly as I look for things and find other things.
Eventually I sometimes even find what I am looking for.
Every time I reorganize things I forget the new place I put something.
K

t said...

Hello Eva, been a while since I visited you.

I really like your joseph coat, and your patchwork in other posts. Isnt it wonderful to go shopping and buy new supplies. But awful not getting what you want.

I have lots of wool, but love to buy more, and every new colour is and inspiration in intself.

The article on clothes by needling was extreemly interesting, and eductational. So much textile goes to waste, great to see it being reused and refashoined, and mended.

Have been really enjoying your blog. will be back for more.

xt

gema said...

Hi Eva, I am in Germany too. Love your latest picture of that cobble stone road, it is beautiful.

Have you tried GERSTAECKER for your art supplies?

I don't know where you are located but maybe you could find some embroidery material at Dodenhof.

It is really a shame that so many of these little Handarbeitläden fold. Younger German women would rather not have anything to do with needlework and the older ones pretend it is just a little 'in' thing they are doing....if they show interest. Few 'hardcore' needleworkers around these days. I wish I could speak and write German like you do English.

ArtSparker said...

That is quite an amusing post.

Eva said...

Hi gema, if you read this, please give me more information about your blog or your work!

gema said...

Hi Eva,
I don't have a blog...at this time....I'm always thinking about setting one up...thinking.
I am not an artist, I just sew and love everything needlework, especially fiber arts.