There are those days when everything seems to come at once. Today is one of those days...

Often such days feel grim, then it becomes too much for you. Today is not such a day, today all 'that much' actually feels party-like!

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It started with Bianca. As she had promised Katja, she had put aside the doll's dress she was fabricating when Katja joined her. She had started working on the dress for Katja's doll that same day. She had spent some time wondering what model she would make, whether it would be something she already knew, or something completely new. Something modern or classic? Something tender, something...

Something very special finally came to her mind. The white satin linen fabric had a slight stripe, not from a difference in colour, but from a difference in thread thickness. She suddenly discovered it when she was playing with the fabric a bit, putting the pieces of fabric she held in both hands at an angle against each other. Bianca suddenly envisioned it: sewing little patches together with that rather obvious thread direction all sorts of ways, so that it would look like shards stuck together.

She first drew a simple pattern for a dress, just a sketch. It reminded her a little of Japanese women's battle dresses, a bit kimono-like. Easy to put on, fastened with some buttons at the back, which surely wasn't part of those combat clothes, and a band around the waist with a bow at the back. The sleeves falling casually wide over the arms.

She worked out the sketch, more accurately in the size that belonged to Katja's doll, each piece individually. She was not used to drawing a pattern, but in this case, it seemed useful to her, so she could more easily sew the 'shards' together within the pattern's measurements.

It was a huge job, cutting all those individual pieces of fabric, pieces with sides of about three to five centimetres, zigzagging all the pieces, and then sewing them together in such a way that the thread directions were not the same as those of the pieces of cloth next to them, but square or oblique to them.

"It's like a puzzle," Bianca muttered. She worked for hours at a time. The work was boring in itself, but she found peace in it; she enjoyed doing it. When the front piece was more than half finished, she laid the patch of pieces sewn together in the sunlight and looked past it diagonally. "Intent succeeded!" she said happily to herself, "the thread directions are just visible enough to see that they are pieces, shards. And all those seams between the 'shards', I'm going to sew that golden thread over them."

When she had all the pattern pieces ready in the right size, neatly fitted to the drawn patterns, she picked up the different parts, pinned them together and watched the kimono-like dress come into being.

"You will be a cool doll, but also a beautiful doll, a confident doll... and that's all exactly what suits your mistress!"

She sewed the panels together, attached small buttons in the shape of balls to the back and made loops from white thread to secure the buttons. She tied the waistband with a pretty bow on the back and looked at the doll from all sides. "I am quite well satisfied with you. And now I'm going to undress you again, because I'm going to decorate your dress with gold thread..."

She picked up the ball of gold thread. Raffia-like, that's how Katja had felt it. That was right, it didn't feel soft like wool, but a bit odd, kind of stiff, with very tiny hairs. She laid the thread over the seams of the pieces in the dress. She wondered in which direction she would run the thread, whether it mattered. She decided to do it piece by piece, just over the edges. She placed the ball on her tray so it wouldn't roll off the table, placed the end over a seam of a shard, and began to fasten it with small stitches across the thread. She only cut the thicker thread when the entire shard was surrounded by it. She looked at the result and was very pleased. The thin gold sewing thread was barely visible, so it was the slightly thicker thread that stood out. She started on the next shard, working all of them in succession.

She hesitated over the loose waistband. If she did the same with that, it would be easily damaged by the bow she had to put in it. She decided to do cross-stitching across all the seams with the sewing thread. The effect was almost the same, but just a little finer for being able to tie the band later.

On the morning the dress was completely finished, she sent Katja a message, telling her she could come and have a look. Katja's face spoke volumes when she saw her doll standing on the table in front of the window. She took a step closer, bent down and looked at the dress with rising amazement.

"They look like shards, soldered together with gold! I love it, look at her standing there now, so confident as if she could take on the whole world! Yes, this is her, this is me, made up of shards, but when I am finally completely healed, I will be just as beautiful."

"Deep down you already are, I could already see it when you came to bring the doll, remember, there is gold in you, that's what I said, and that's how I felt. And that will become more and more visible!" Bianca promised her. "And now the trickiest thing, the invoice. I haven't passed it on to Ilse yet, because I wanted to talk to you about it first. If I calculate all the hours, I arrive at 720 euros."

Before she could talk any further, Katja put her hand on Bianca's arm. "Just stop, I understand what you want to say, and yes, it's a lot, but it's worth it. Your art, your expression of your soul, has brought me to a turning point. It's well worth that money! Just send your details to Ilse. Then I will definitely get the invoice from her, right?"

Bianca nodded: "Yes, she will take care of all that."

"Then that will be all right! Can I take the doll in advance?" asked Katja.

"Yes, almost, I want to take some pictures of it, for the collage of the final result."

Bianca grabbed her mobile, took photos of all sides of the doll and then handed it to Katja.

"It was a big job, but it was lovely to do. I hope your Shard Queen will encourage you very often!"

Katja laughed: "Shard Queen, perfect name, somewhat unusual, but it fits fine, a queen made up of shards..."

She took the doll from Bianca and hugged her with her free arm. "Thank you, Bianca, I'm really very happy with it!"

"Me too, I enjoyed it, and your happiness does me immeasurably good!"

Katja returned home, where she found a nice spot for her Shard Queen, in the full light on the wall unit.

Meanwhile, Bianca sent an email to Ilse, to the gallery's email address, telling her that she had sold her first artwork. She mentioned the client and the price and attached photos.

She received a jubilant email back: 'The first work I get to sell on your behalf, worth a celebration! And how special that dress is, and that name you gave it, Shard Queen... appropriate!'

Bianca emailed back: 'It is also the first work I sell for me. Will you put 'Sold' on the site? I had said to Katja too, that it was time for a party if I sold my first dress. I just don't know yet how, where and when and with whom. Just the artists? Or also all the other residents of Bloemenhof?'

Ilse replied that she would think about it, that surely they could organise something together. She herself would love to ask the residents from here to join in, maybe even Rosalie and her parents. Somehow they all belonged together.

Bianca thought it was a good plan, even though she realised that it would swallow up much of her initial earnings. That felt a little off for a while, but the joy of the new beginning overcame with ease!

.

Ilse had just made and sent the invoice for Katja when she received a message from Huib about a cupboard he had made for someone. He had typed in all the practical details and added photos. He would bring the cupboard to the customer himself, at the customer's request, and charged for transport costs, for fuel and time.

"Wow," Ilse whispered, "number two! Beautiful cabinet by the way, truly a work of art, no one else will have a similar cabinet..."

She also arranged the invoice for Huib and mailed it to his client.

Then she put both Bianca's and Huib's pieces of art on the site. For Bianca, she did the same as she had already done for Huib. She split her page into 'For sale' and 'Sold' and placed the Shard Queen in the latter category.

In her overview in Excel, she copied the details of both invoices, split the amount into 90% for the artist and 10% for herself and left the 'paid' box blank for a while. She decided to check the bank account at most once a day and then transfer the money to the artist and her 10% to herself and put the date of payment in the 'paid' box. She opened the file of her work script, and wrote this decision under the heading 'Daily activities'.

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Again she heard the buzz of a new message on her mobile. Danielle Fraser was emailing pictures and details of an artwork she had sold.

"Well well, it's a hit today," Ilse muttered. She looked at the photos, titled 'Vase'. Danielle had only just finished the vase, taken photos and brought it to the shop. The first customers who had come in, had immediately loved it. She had explained to them, that they could already take it with them, and that they would be sent an invoice by the gallery's website manager, that that had recently become their way of working.

Ilse looked at the pictures. "Beautiful thing, truly a work of art! Indeed, a vase shape, but I wouldn't put any water in it!" she laughed. The 'Vase' consisted of wirework, decorated with precious stones. The stones at the bottom were significantly larger than the top ones, as if Danielle had placed them in order from large to small, working from bottom to top.

Ilse looked at the data. She copied the customer details in the invoice and on Danielle's sales summary. The amounts were split into working hours and material costs.

She emailed Danielle back: 'Third artwork sold today, things are suddenly starting to pick up. I have meanwhile forwarded the invoice to your client, and put the pictures on your page under the heading “Sold”. Beautiful “Vase” by the way, truly a work of art!'

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The fourth message came from Margreet, a request for a quote. Margreet, following the measurements of the tapestry requested by the customer, had made an estimate of working hours and asked to include that in the quotation. She had also written a description of the tapestry to be made, its size and subject matter for the quotation.

Ilse jumped up from her chair, did a lap dance and sat back down.

"What a day!"

She made the quotation and sent it to the customer. She then sent Margreet a message that she was number four already today, and that the quotation was on its way to the customer, asking her to let know by return if it was agreed, so that Margreet could start working on it.

Margreet emailed back: 'Number four? So it's suddenly starting to happen? Extraordinary! I'll wait to work on it until you get that agreement, I'll hear from you!'

And that's what she heard, less than fifteen minutes later. The client agreed, Margreet could get to work.

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Ilse put together a group email, recounting what had happened that morning, yes, just in the morning. At the top of the message, she wrote in big letters: 'Time to party'.

She suggested that it was indeed time for celebration, asked the artists if they agreed, if they had any ideas and if they agreed to invite the other Bloemenhof family members and the people from the Discovery Centre as well.

That same day, she received happy responses from everyone and together they concluded that they wanted to celebrate extensively, with all the people mentioned, and decided to have a barbecue. True, it was early in the year, still chilly to sometimes even cold, but they could always eat inside, while the barbecue was watched outside. Huib invited everyone to their house. He and a few others arranged some barbecues and, together with Sjaak, he would take care of everything else that would be needed inside.

And the expenses? Everyone agreed, that they would split the expenses among all the artists. The fact that something had been sold from four people, they all felt like 'our work'. So there was a happy 'we-feeling' during the preparations and on the party afternoon itself. The gallery was a fact, a fantastic fact!

To chapter 46. Things are suddenly moving fast

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