Quiltarama
I spent today at the Tasmanian Quilt Show, shopping (with remarkable restraint, really) and admiring pretty things with a gang of my best girls. It's always nice to see your own quilt on display (even if mine suffered from embarrassing hanging sleeve fail and flopped a bit at the top) but even more exciting to see so many other projects that Hobart crafters have been working on.
We were particularly inspired by the idea of journal quilts - making an A4 size piece per month - and have resolved (sort of) to give it a try. I am keen to make some small Aufleur-inspired artworks and this could be the way to go with that.
The marvellous and saintly Helen, AKA The Enabler (owner of the mighty vroom machine) turned out to be one of the judges of this year's show! Sneaky woman, she never said a word to us about it!
I picked up a bit of fabric but nothing dramatic - I was feeling a bit conservative about funds and I'm not really in huge pre-quilt frame of mind right now. The one thing I wanted - a bazillion pre-cut paper templates - was yet again nowhere on sale. Seriously, people. You could squeeze a FORTUNE out of me. I was complaining about this loudly to godiyeva and an elderly lady turned around and commented (there was a lot of this at the quilt show - people interrupting private conversations to give their unasked for advice, what do they think this is, Twitter?) that I should do it myself, it was easy enough even if fiddly and I could devote a "rainy afternooon" to it.
HA. godiyeva cracked up over the concept that I could spend more than ten minutes doing a repetitive task that involves measuring (she knows me so well) while I boggled at the thought of having a spare rainy afternoon. Seriously. These people are crazy.
Speaking of crazy, I felt remarkably oppressed at the Quilt Fair. Once you pass the 7 month part of being pregnant, you become infused with a certain sense of personal entitlement. People are more careful around you, will make sure you have a chair if you need one (heh you only have to faint in a bank queue once) and generally speaking will not barge into you even if they have spotted a bargain or they really need to join the coffee queue.
Not so at the Quilt Show! I suspect that the sheer number of women with similar senses of personal entitlement - the elderly, the disabled, general bastions of matronly rudenss, bargain-hunters - somehow cancels everything out and so my magical circle of pregnancy protection was gone. I spent most of the day having people step into, barge into and in some cases slam into my personal space, with nary a glance at my waistline.
I am a special and delicate flower, damn you all, stop treading on my feet!
I think this was the 4th quilt show that godiyeva and I have attended since she came to live with Helen and the Enabling began, and we finally learned our lesson to take a packed lunch rather than queue up for 45 minutes to score a luke-warm pie and 'muffin' (I'm sorry, if it's smaller than your average cupcake, it is NOT a muffin). We warned our entire posse who turned up not only with their own lunches and drink bottles, but also chocolates (love you, looneymoth) and homemade lemon slice (Mel is a goddess).
We felt very smug and civilised to discover that yes, despite the fact that the queues are disgustingly long every single year (the coffee one was worse than the food, and like that all day), nothing new had been done to alleviate the problem. Likewise, just as in all previous years, an event peopled with mostly mature women was catered for as if it was a bog-standard 1980's school canteen.
So yes, we won completely at bringing our own lunch and finally scored a table in the cafeteria despite requiring something like a military operation to acquire seven chairs.
But the important thing is, I didn't faint, throw up or in any way overtire myself, despite the fact that I came close to doing all three last year without being pregnant.
Now I get to relax in my oddly quiet house, as my child is stranded with her grandfather at his place until the RACT comes to fix his car. It's a good day...
We were particularly inspired by the idea of journal quilts - making an A4 size piece per month - and have resolved (sort of) to give it a try. I am keen to make some small Aufleur-inspired artworks and this could be the way to go with that.
The marvellous and saintly Helen, AKA The Enabler (owner of the mighty vroom machine) turned out to be one of the judges of this year's show! Sneaky woman, she never said a word to us about it!
I picked up a bit of fabric but nothing dramatic - I was feeling a bit conservative about funds and I'm not really in huge pre-quilt frame of mind right now. The one thing I wanted - a bazillion pre-cut paper templates - was yet again nowhere on sale. Seriously, people. You could squeeze a FORTUNE out of me. I was complaining about this loudly to godiyeva and an elderly lady turned around and commented (there was a lot of this at the quilt show - people interrupting private conversations to give their unasked for advice, what do they think this is, Twitter?) that I should do it myself, it was easy enough even if fiddly and I could devote a "rainy afternooon" to it.
HA. godiyeva cracked up over the concept that I could spend more than ten minutes doing a repetitive task that involves measuring (she knows me so well) while I boggled at the thought of having a spare rainy afternoon. Seriously. These people are crazy.
Speaking of crazy, I felt remarkably oppressed at the Quilt Fair. Once you pass the 7 month part of being pregnant, you become infused with a certain sense of personal entitlement. People are more careful around you, will make sure you have a chair if you need one (heh you only have to faint in a bank queue once) and generally speaking will not barge into you even if they have spotted a bargain or they really need to join the coffee queue.
Not so at the Quilt Show! I suspect that the sheer number of women with similar senses of personal entitlement - the elderly, the disabled, general bastions of matronly rudenss, bargain-hunters - somehow cancels everything out and so my magical circle of pregnancy protection was gone. I spent most of the day having people step into, barge into and in some cases slam into my personal space, with nary a glance at my waistline.
I am a special and delicate flower, damn you all, stop treading on my feet!
I think this was the 4th quilt show that godiyeva and I have attended since she came to live with Helen and the Enabling began, and we finally learned our lesson to take a packed lunch rather than queue up for 45 minutes to score a luke-warm pie and 'muffin' (I'm sorry, if it's smaller than your average cupcake, it is NOT a muffin). We warned our entire posse who turned up not only with their own lunches and drink bottles, but also chocolates (love you, looneymoth) and homemade lemon slice (Mel is a goddess).
We felt very smug and civilised to discover that yes, despite the fact that the queues are disgustingly long every single year (the coffee one was worse than the food, and like that all day), nothing new had been done to alleviate the problem. Likewise, just as in all previous years, an event peopled with mostly mature women was catered for as if it was a bog-standard 1980's school canteen.
So yes, we won completely at bringing our own lunch and finally scored a table in the cafeteria despite requiring something like a military operation to acquire seven chairs.
But the important thing is, I didn't faint, throw up or in any way overtire myself, despite the fact that I came close to doing all three last year without being pregnant.
Now I get to relax in my oddly quiet house, as my child is stranded with her grandfather at his place until the RACT comes to fix his car. It's a good day...