Sunday, September 17, 2006

Home again home again jiggetty jig

Well the AQA Symposium went off very well I thought. I'm absolutely dog-tired but had a ball . Caught up with loads of people ... spent a reasonably restrained amount of loot and hopefully imparted some knowledge.
Drove down on Friday evening, stayed with Nadie ... very little sleep as she's right on a busy road and I'm not the best of sleepers ... and up bright and early to be at the venue [ Sienna College in Camberwell which looks as though it has sprung straight from Tuscany ] by 8.30. We all checked in, claimed our goody bags, did a first fast run through the vendors, grabbed a coffee and then we dived into Shiborii dyeing . Everyone's clothes stayed remarkeably clean but the same can't be said for our hands. I look like some woad covered early Briton

Today was designing with japanese fabrics and themes. Yesterday was playtime, today they had to work. Very scary for some of the ladies as some had never designed a quilt completely on their own. What they were actually being asked to do was to respond to the fabrics that they had brought in on a fairly intuitive level. Japanese fabrics are quite quite different to conventional quilt fabrics in terms of design so it can be a challenge to work with them even when you've done it before. Some, I know, won't finish what they've started because that's what always happens with workshops, but I hope that most of them do, because truly they were rather wonderful. No photos still because the 'new' card reader that tanuj has given me, doesn't seem to be talking to the PC. Some of the girls took photos so I'll edit this later when I have something to show you all.
addendum:
just got off the phone with friend Di: she's lending me her spare [ electric ] spinning wheel ... AFTER the quilt show is over.
I've got some beautiful silver grey alpaca carded tops and Di's organising the scouring/ carding of some nice grey fleece that is excess to her needs for $30 a kilo ... so watch out: Catsmum has a potential new obsession! I've only ever used a drop spindle and that was decades ago.

5 comments:

Sheepish Annie said...

My mom used to say the "home again, home again..." line all the time. I still do every now and again. An electric spinning wheel! Now that sounds like fun. Glad your symposium went well and that you made it home in one piece!

catsmum said...

thankyou my dear sheepie ... how's the sniffles?

M-H said...

Have you seen the 'shibori' fairisle that Janine designed and is knitting? http://feralknitter.typepad.com/feral_knitter/2006/07/the_bestest_cam.html (scroll down for a pic)

catsmum said...

I didn't find a shibori one but there WAS a spiffy one called sashiko... was that what you meant?
It actually looked to me more like kasuri [ ikat ] than either sashiko [ bold running stitched japanese quilting] or shibori [ japanese resist dyeing ] but I will accept that I'm being pedantic :]

M-H said...

[blush] You're right, it is called sashiko - she did model it on pictures of sashiko work. There was a description ages ago in her blog of how she planned it and the inspiration. I think the different fairisle patterns are meant to represent the faded pieces of old indigo-dyed garments, patched and in layers, that were used in workers jackets made with this technique.