The year of the Tiger

There is a Sewing, Yarn & Fabric convention in Malmö this weekend. I had planned to go but when I left work today I didn’t feel like it at all. I’ve had a long hard week and all I wanted to do was to get home to a glass of wine and some serious amount of chocolate. As I drove by the convention center on my way home I suddenly changed my mind. What a heck, a tiny peak just might cheer me up and it wasn’t like I was going to buy anything!

I entered the convention center determined just to look around – no buying. Nope not me. Not a single ball of yarn was to accompany me home. Ha bloody ha. It took about ten seconds before I had bought my first ball…..and after buying that first one everything was sort of lost anyway and I just kept going. Two wonderful balls of spider web thin mohair in red and orange, a beautiful cotton yarn in mixed green colors and a funny green mohair kind of yarn with tiny pieces of silk ribbon added to it. Just when I told myself that it was ENOUGH I found a woven fabric in the same color as the red and orange mohair that would be just perfect for a spring skirt and three pieces of wool perfect for making some brooches or wrist warmers. I looked at my watch and saw that I had been there for exactly 20 minutes. Way to go Jeanette!

Then I turned round a corner and stopped absolutely amazed. I saw the most beautiful and colorful quilts. I had never seen anything like it before. Quilts with a twist, filled with embroidery, buttons, bottle caps and with so many details that you just looked and looked and still found something new that caught your eye.





I turned around another corner and that’s when I got really lucky. I found the artist herself, Ulva Ugerup. We had a long chat about her art and she was just as interesting as her art pieces. It turned out that she also held classes and I would really, really like to attend one of those. She was truly inspirational!



Her she is standing by a piece that almost brought tears to my eyes. In my mind I call it the year of the Tiger but I am not quite sure that it is what it was actually called. Ulva told me that everyday a Tiger is killed. Her quilt is a calendar with 31 different beautiful and colorful Tigers on it.



You start the month with all the Tigers showing but everyday you turn one Tiger around and on the back is a sad and dark Tiger with a cross over it. A sad homage to the Tiger that had died that day.

Just think about it. A tiger dead each day makes 365 dead tigers a year. That is so sad!



Thank you Ulva! Your quilt was a real eye-opener to me!

If you want to see more of Ulvas work you can visit her blog


Now I am going to have that glass of wine and some chocolate and then I better get started on my postcards for ihanna DIY postcard swap.

Hope you have a fabulous weekend

Jeanette