Quilt Show Friday

My daughter called and asked if I wanted to go to the quilt show this last Friday. Have I ever turned down an invite to a Quilt Show? Well, at least one more.

My husband and I had made it down to the Moses Lake Quilt show earlier in the year and it was a really fun one for me. They had a nice display of older quilts that for some reason really appealed to me, with their sharp colors contrasts and old quilt patterns. I just kept going back and looking at those old quilts again and again. Perhaps thats why after the fire took us out, and I started feeling the need for fabric between my fingers or under my rotary blade, that I started looking at  fabrics that could almost pass for old. The difference of course is the slightly different design with  color approach. But that is what I sought when I went to buy some Therapy Fabric after the fire.

But Life has been busy, and mind bending. I had turned down a trip to the Buggy Barn Show. Two things, I had fell and hurt my legs and ankles, and I just don't feel justified in purchasing  fabric right now--- except for what I got with my gift certificate and then just a little more to round out this project that I have started. But I have also felt somewhat disconnected with life, somewhat drifting and not very focused, so this sounded like a good thing to do at this time.

It was a good show. Lots of quilts, the guest quilter did applique and it was so very good, and there were the usual quilts, the well, just quilts and some very interesting modern quilting design quilts. How can I do that, veer back and forth from the old to the very modern? But that was where my interest was this time. What do they have in common? What attracts me right now and why? Simplicity? Colors? Less clutter? What is it? I can't find it, what I am seeing that attracts. Maybe it is  not what they have in common, but what each offers that is interesting.

While visiting with a friend today, she was talking about the lack of interesting quilts at the county fair this year. One winner, she just couln't get into this quilt at all, and I found that one the most interesting of the display. She thought that it was so full of unrelated fabric and  too many fabrics with pictures of things in it, and I can see that and understand that. But she felt it was just a meshmash of mixed color and no real pattern, and I thought the path the colors took you down was what was interesting. And I must admit. There wasn't much else to catch my interest at that display either. Quilters! Arise and show your work! Intrigue other quilters into doing more. We do stimulate each other and that is good.

But there were a few quilts at this show I went back and looked at a few times, trying to decide what attracted me, what pulled me back, what I was seeing. I had no trouble with wanting to duplicate them and as I told my husband, there is something sad at looking at so much display and your minds eye kept calling to mind your own unfinished but loved work that the firestorm took out. I try not to dwell on that stuff. But the more you see, the more you remember.
But,perhaps I liked the very modern look this time because, I am working on a "sort of" oldish design, and what I lost was folky, brights and sharp,my own designs or a series of drunkard paths, and I didn't have to compare so different with so modern? Your mind will play tricks with you, so it doesn't have to hurt anymore.

I didn't purchase a single piece of fabric at the show. That was surely not me. But I didn't. I want to keep on with this Therapy project and finish it and not get side tracked with multi ideas. I do think working with multi ideas at the same time is a good thing. You can switch modes and jump start some good design activity with a fresh approach on a fresh day. Its just that -- now is not the time to invest in fabric, not for me. I am trying to focus on the important things of life, and not just be a loose marble, rolling from item to item, out of control. I am probably afraid of losing control and spiriling somewhere where I don't want to go.

One thing that I couldn't resist though was, the Quilting Boutique Booth that had boxes and boxes and boxes of old quilt books, all kinds, all assorted publishers, along with magazines for sale---CHEAP. With my library in ashes, this I couldn't and didn't resist. What bargins.
I haven't looked at any of them yet since I brought them home. I am saving them for that lazy, cozy, day of sheer relaxing.

What I did do though was sew up four more of my project quilt blocks. They do not look old. They have a certain old feel, but they are too sharp and colorful to be old. There is too much different directions in the fabric designs to  attain a certain blahness that most old quilts have. But it was an enjoyable day, and maybe the best part of the day was to feel the machine sing beneath my fingers when I came home and pieced a few more blocks.