Ulrike

- i am an end 40s dabbler in a lot of things. some might call me a renaissance woman, others dilletante.
in school, I always thought languages were my only talent (i was wrong but that was something i realized only many decades later), so when i went to university, I studied chinese (major) and japanese for 4 years, and then changed to english linguistics (major), literature and general philosophy. after my master i taught as a teacher at university, later on as a teacher in adult education, i translated books and other stuff and at one point in time i owned a webdesign business. to get by i worked as a secretary, in desktop publishing, as a cleaning woman and in a book shop.
about ten years ago, my elderly parents moved to my husband and me. for about 6 years now, my day job is taking care of my parents. my father died with 88 nearly 4 years ago so now only my mother (86) is left. some days are good, some are not but all in all she is still in remakable health which allows me to pursue my next love: natural dyeing and dabbling with fabrics.
i collect vintage cotton and linen fabrics (and when I can get my hands on it, vintage cotton velvet), dye some of them and sew bags, patchwork blankets and cuffs from it. i think, my style is best represented by what some people call neo-tribal or ethnic. which is why i feel so attracted to the things Jude crafts. I like rough edges and not too straight lines - oh and spirals

- my textile life began as a small child when my mother insited i needed to learn to knit, crochet and sew. i even did a sewing class once when i was in my early teens. and didn't like it much. as a crafty i began with building bicycles and furniture and hand sewed my own clothes while i was at university.

- after a year in a day job that brought me a good income but took nearly 16 hours a day working with data banks on the computer, i felt i needed something different and remembered that i always wanted to learn to spin. so i bought a handspindle and some fibre and taught myself to spin. although i bought a spinning wheel some years later, i am still in love with spindling and try to master it. right now i'm into spinning cotton and linen.

- i still have the feeling, i'm too much confined to conventional techniques and aesthetics. which is why i booked Jude's classes to learn a better technique, become a bit more clearer of my motivation, get inspired and get to know some people who like cloth the same way i do.

- many years ago, nearly two decades now, when i began exploring the internet, i needed a nick name. social media back then was something like bulletin boards, forums and some interactive web sites with chat functions. around the same time, i brought a nice little pet rat home from the pet shop. she totally ignored me (which is absolutely normal at the beginning and we became best pals later on) and she needed a name, so i named her IgnoRat. which was a play on words, since ignorat in Latin means 'he/she refuses to take notice of (someone)' and there is 'rat' in it. don't judge, i was young back then. IgnoRat became my nick for many years and when i decided to open a one-woman webdesign business i named it IgnoRat Design. when i began dabbling in textile crafts, i searched for something different. maybe i needed a change and i certainly looked for a kind of new beginning without leaving my old self too far behind. it's still me in a way. so, while 'ignorat' means 'to refuse to take notice of' 'nemo ignorat' means 'everbody knows' ('no one refuses to take notice of' Latin is nifty is using double negatives. i did my master's thesis about double negatives and understatement in english) and, you have to admit, Nemo is a really cool literary figure

- my profile picture shows one of my two dogs. a really nice old (15) german pincher (no, not the miniature freckles - nothing against them -, the larger ones that are nearly extinct). my other dog is a spanish podenco mix from an animal shelter. you can see pics of both in my other, mostly german blog www.handspindel.de

- i don't like machines, that includes sewing machines, anything in the kitchen that makes too much noise and though i love my 100 year old treadle sewing machine, it is too static for my taste. which is why i prefer handspindles to spinning wheels and hand sewing to machine sewing. and bicycles to cars.

- i'm not on facebook or twitter

- i'm a vegetarian nearly my whole life

- my favourite band is Abney Park

- my favourite costume designer is Ngila Dickson

- i'm a physics geek. reading or seeing something about physics in general and cosmology in specific makes me tingly all over. I own an autographed copy of brian cox' and jeff foreshaw's book: why e = mc² and why should we care

- i'm a natural fibre snob.

- when i have to buy something, i prefer to buy second hand before buying something new.

- when i can get it local (and organic), i prefer buying local (and organic). if not local, it should be organic and preferably fair trade.

- buy less, use less, make more yourself, reduce, reuse, recycle, repair