Greetings from Montevideo, from Alison Schwabe, Aussie quiltmaker

Close to the downtown area, this really caught my eye and I found myself wondering what it would feel like to occupy one of these apartments without even a small balcony,
front or back. it stands on a very narrow triangular block where roads converge or diverge depending on your point of view.


We had a force 3 hurricane here in Montevideo nearly a year ago - I just feel the slender construction of this building might have made that an even more unpleasant time for the occupants than for those of us in buildings of a larger footprint/height ratio.

Labels: architecture, oddity, uruguay

I have commented before ( on this blog, dec. 2005, group belonging or useful opportunity?) on what traditional quilters seem to need to wear to quilting events - long denim skirts and with quilted bargello jacket in shades of pink , blue or mint with touches of navy come to mind. Among art quilters and their wannabes there is the same urge but often expressed in something hand dyed and therfore 'arty' - there's some fabulously elegant gear around among art quilters and designers, I just don't do art to wear and don't feel I need to dress up like some painting to go to an opening or other art quilt event. I'm OK with that.


On the Quiltart list this morning, one writer commented she was going to a school reunion this weekend, and how she felt she needed to wear something home-made and artsy to demonstrate her success as a quilter in the context of competitiveness coming out at such times as class reunions - and said she was determined to finish the binding of sweatshuirt designer jacket she began in someone's class a while back, to wear at the dinner on saturday night, where everyone else will be in 'normal' but presumably their good clothes - here's part of what I wrote:

" .... think - will the professional sports coach be there in sweats and trainers? will the cardiac surgeon turn up in full gear and facial mask wielding scalpel? will the ceramic designer turn up in clay-spattered apron over shirt and jeans? Will the gourmet restaurant chef turn up in his cooking gear? Of course not, so please re-consider this quilters urge thing ( to which I have never succumbed, incidentally, although I did buy a tiara to wear to Houston in the event I get there one day...) Better to swear something snazzy and glam/business-like and have plenty of business cards with your details including website and email address to hand out to everyone you meet. No website? Well, anyone who pays any particular attention invite them to call sometime to arrange for a studio visit ......O why why why do quilters feel they must wear something quilted or pieced to somehow display that they have had success? The medium will never be taken seriously as an art medium unless ths kind of thinking fades amongst us."

On the list and and personally there were perhaps 8-10 emails in response, more in agreement with what I said, a couple not so. One writer pointed out that the examples I gave were all of uniforms and different from designer art to wear. She had a point, but, actually, I don't feel anything with 'sweatshirt.. ' in the description really qualifies as Designer Wear.... but it also missed the point I was making about what I call the Quilters Uniform we see so often at exhibitions - denim skirt or jeans - nothing against either of them except when topped with a jacket that looks as if it is a cut-down bed quilt, or as someone else described it, 'quilty clothing', in the most extreme classic case an ohio star block or similar placed centre back, surrounded by log cabin infill, and only very rarely flattering to the slender figure - which most quilters are not - and I include myself in that.

After further on-list discussion, the school-reunion attending quilter did comment that the gathering is in Miami and that the jacket will probably spend most of the evening over the back of a chair, anyway, where it will be seen to better advantage than on her, since there were a couple of places where she felt the fit and resulting drape isn't as good as it could be. QED.

Labels: a pet peeve

Dipping into the collection I have for this one today - rather old and stained by water or something from inside the container where it was kept for all those ages before it emerged onto the street stall where I bought it. The motif is about 4 inches/10 cm at it's widest.
The mesh filling is very fine and I just love the delicacy of the connecting bars - needlemade lace for sure but with the appearance of my aunt's tatting - still, both needle and shuttle do the same thing in this case.
A set of serviettes or a tablecloth with lots of this kind of motif would be worth a fortune today if in good condition. I have my eyes open when out on the street markets - the quality of some of the pieces on sale out there is very high, often much better than a couple of private collections I have seen. A lot of traditional embroidery comes up in estate sales - several people have made the statement supporting what I have observed - that the younger people want modern easy-care stuff, and are not usually prepared to spend the time and effort required to keep linen like this in use and carefully laundered. I did meet L, one collector who has masses of table linen, both everyday and some very special things, eg, a massive ecru coloured venetian lace cloth. Stunning, and probably priceless. Sometimes he lends some of them for special occasions, such as weddings and serious significant birthdays or other celebrations. (the formal cloths tend to be very long, up to 4m, and some longer, which cover some of the massively long fully extended family dining tables still to be found here) And he pays to have one of the few remaining specialist laundries downtown to have his best table cloths hand washed and dried blocked out over special stretcher bars. That in itself might be an interesting expedition, I must ask my friend V where to go.... I am of modern mind - and generally use table mats or cloths I can iron MOL easily (no ironing is easy, imho) and I will pay to have several large damask cloths we have laundered commercially. (used at such times as Christmas if the family are around) Where I go here, the cloth is machine washed and ironed on a press. For the equivalent of US$10, they do a very good job, with the cloth being presented folded over a coathanger. A while ago I bought a lovely, fabulous linen cloth embroidered in lots of lovely flowers, whitework, about 2.5 m long with hemstitched borders, for under equivalent US$100, and now just waiting for the family (at least 10 of them) to appear for Christmas/New Year here this year, and I am sure my local cleaner will deal with it just fine. Depending on how we go with the red wine, I might even do the napisan thing myself and take the clean cloth round for pressing.

Labels: lace textile, sample

One day last week I found myself on the beach at Carrasco, ie about 7 blocks down our street - on a windy afternoon with weak sunshine. I was not aware it had rained but clearly it had just there only a short time before I came along. The raindrops in the coarse sand produced a pattern that has me thinking ... but maybe for after I finish the piece I am working on, with metallic leathers and metallic-waxcoated leathers applied as surface design onto a large piece of fabric, to then be quilted. I have had quite a few visitors this week and all have oohed and aahed encouragingly. The weather is becoming cold, rain threatening, ideal for hunkering down with a large quilt project to finish with some deadlines in view.

Saturday I had a visit from Graciela my new quilting friend who has produced bits of leather - this time she produced Inez and Soledad, two more quilters. Apart from sharing coffee and some books together we shared some freehand aka intuitive a piecing technique, and it will be interesting to see where they take this - as it has been with everyone who has leaned the simple steps. Already I could see that although she was interested it probably won't go far in one set of hands - but I know it will in one of the others.

Editing the photo I included today was interesting - I cropped a bit and then turned it one way - it looked so very wrong and then the other way as it is now, it is just right. Seems to me it's a light and shadow thing : but up in the northern hemisphere it would be round the right way - so would it still look wrong viewed from there ?