In this shot of the Casino Hotel Carrasco taken from the other side of the Rambla (esplanade) the hotel  was nearing the final competion of the massive restoration project that has just been finished – at last.   It first opened in 1921, and became an iconic building within the city of Montevideo, but after many years of gradual decline, the hotel finally closed about 17 years ago and stood forlornly looking out over the River Plate as it crumbled in situ here in Carrasco at the eastern end of Montevideo, 10 minutes from the airport.   Down the ensuing years several attempts to carry out the massive restoration job fell through, one after the other, so that locals became rather used to the huge abandoned building in which the actual casino part continued to function, until that was closed to enable the restoration to begin, again.  But this time the job was completed.   It took several years, perhaps 3, for this grand, fin de siecle hotel to be transformed as a modern 5 star hotel.  We never did get our invitation to the gala opening ….. but I heard that was very political, and so we’d have been out of our league, but we enjoyed the fireworks anyway.  One of my friend’s sons is a manager there, but even she couldn’t wangle an invite, either.

But I’ve noticed one strange thing about it – walking on the beach about a year ago, heading westwards towards the hotel, I saw for the first time that the two ‘towers’ on top are not parallel, and my keen quilter’s eye detected a lean of perhaps 3-4 degrees off vertical in the western tower.  It’s hard to photograph because if you get up closer you can’t see it properly, but I took this recent pic in favourable early morning light:

No one I’ve talked to seems to have noticed or have any idea about it, and so I have no idea if something happened many years ago or if it is moving ever so slowly, like the Tower of Pisa, Italy !!  think I’ll get a confirmation of the situation before I spend time there …

So far, like many people thronging around the complex, we’ve been in to have a look around, but haven’t yet had lunch, dinner, or spent a night there.  Rooms start at, well, 5 star prices ;-p and gorgeous suites can be had for the thousands of dollars according to the website!  It looks lovely.  You can phone up and have a guided tour of the hotel, which we might do sometime.

In the Casino, much like other casinos, really,  there’s garish lighting of course, typical of casinos everywhere, and not many places to sit, but I thought these chairs looked very a nice, stylish shape, though I wasn’t mad about the upholstery fabric which on one chair was aready showing a split seam at a corner.   I do think leather would have been far classier, as they produce heaps of really lovely leather in this country – colours, textures, stamped designs, beautiful.

Of course I tried one for comfort, and am sorry to report these are the most dreadfully uncomfortable chairs I have ever sat in – well, more like ‘perched on’, really, as the back rest is so far back at a difficult angle which leaves you literally sprawling in the chair – horribly uncomfortable, and there’s no way to sit in a ladylike manner.  Mike commented they don’t want you sitting around the gambling areas, anyway…. and he has a point.

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Since the height of their popularity in C19 and C20, the popularity of golliwogs as toys has declined as the opolitical incorrectness of their use as anti-cultural icons has increased.  From Wikipedia – where there is a lot of interesting reading if you wish to pursue the subject:”The golliwog, golliwogg or golly was a black character in children’s books in the late 19th century usually depicted as a type of rag doll. It was reproduced, both by commercial and hobby toy-makers as a children’s toy called the “golliwog”, and had great popularity in North America, Europe and Australia into the 1970s. The doll is characterised by black skin, eyes rimmed in white, clown lips, and frizzy hair. While home-made golliwogs were sometimes female, the golliwog was generally male.

This fellow, from Graciela’s collection, doesn’t quite conform to the type descriptor above – but we recognise him, anyway, as one of these figures.  And, to me he looks rather Uruguayan, not just because his wristband says so, but his headgear and short dreadlocks are somewhat reminiscent of candombe drummers, whose music is listed as a World Cultural Heritage from the Rio Plate area.

This muneca (doll) propped up on the couch is the second of a group I have acquired from a creative knitter, textile artist, who sells her creations on a couple of the regular street markets in Montevideo.  And, I think she has done a lovely job producing the unmistakeable Charlie Chaplin. That’s his bendy walking cane he’s holding in his hands.

When I asked, she told me she works out the patterns herself, and that each one this size, about 45cm, takes at least a whole day to make, often more  depending on the detail.  Some of her designs require specific colours and patterns in their clothing which makes them more finnicky.  Some parts are machine knitted and other parts, the smaller segments of the design, are hand knitted. The facial features of course, are stitched by hand.

I have one more, so far, to show you in a few days’ time, and I have decided that they would be a fun wall display in the downstairs loo aka here as ‘social bathroom / bano social.

There’s an enterprising lady who has a weekly stall in the Sarandi Peatonal in the old city of Montevideo.  She sells knitted dolls, munecas,  some this size, 45cm , some 20cm andshe alsom makes small knitted heads for keyring tags.  And they’re all great.

With knitted outfit depicting the famous revolutionary khaki battle fatigues and star-adorned beret, this is the unmistakable figure of Che Guevara, ‘Che Papa’.  About 45cm tall and knitted, plus sporting hand embroidered facial details, it’s one of a series the artist Graciela makes, each tagged with her name and mobile phone#  plus a feature I don’t think they need – a little wristband with ‘Uruguay’ printed on it.  As if you’d forget where you bought this wonderful creation!

I think the hand stitched facial features are very good – the eyes have a touch of the soulful look in several of the famous photos of him, including ones that we saw in the Museo de la Revoluction at Santa Clara, Cuba, when we were there a couple of months ago.

Knowing my love of creativity in textile and fibre, Mike suggested we go to her sunday market stall on Tristan Navarja and check the rest out. Today was a beautiful day, so we went and found two more irrestible figures – and I will show them on this page shortly… and will keep an eye on this artist/craftsman.

Today’s Modern Quilt Guild movement quilters have strongly embraced functionality/warmth as a primary raison d’etre  for their creativity, and as Modern quilters are focused on making bed quilts of various sizes, so there are very few small quilts in Luana Rubin’s collection of images from the recently held QuiltCon in Austin – which you can see on her blog here

Exhibitors at Austin were juried from their entries, so thery were probably highly representative of some of the best being done in the Modern Quilt Guild movement as a whole, and the effect was stunning. I’d love to have been there.  The mostly clear graphic designs in their in their quilts represnt a huge style shift from the traditional patchwork and quilting patterns.

According to the Guild’s website, graphic qualities including minimalism and use of negative space are prime values.  In order to avoid violating anyone’s copyright, ;-p I modestly include a couple of my own quilts that I am sure qualify as Modern in terms of this guild:

Mirage 1, 2002.  80cm x 96cm wall quilt. 

This small wall quilt led me to make the following a few years later:

Ebb & Flow Scrap Quilt,  2008.   Approx 100cm x 145cm, single bed.

Both of these quilts extensively use offcuts from other previous quilt projects  (but noe actually recycled from previous uses)  plus some yardage from my stash – which includes quite a bit of undyed muslin aka calico in Australia, and in this way are typical of many of my ‘recent’ (post 2001) quilts, many of which are in the Ebb & Flow Gallery elsewhere on this website

Although it is hard to tell individiual cases from the QuiltCon photos, no doubt there are many modern quilters using at least some recycled fabrics, but clearly this movement as represented in Austin has given fabric manufacturers a shot in the arm.  Most of this large and growing group of quilters are working with purchased fabric collections featuring the latest textural and geometric prints against whites, gradated neutral solids and bright clear solids.   Indeed, despite design differences, many of these same fabrics appear from quilt to quilt, maker to maker, so manufacturers have latched on to favoured colour palettes, particularly the bright clear colour of the Modern Quilt Guild logo, and have produced what modern quilters want.  But I think over time quilters who worked with them this first time will gradually explore/develop individual colour signatures, and at future QuiltCon events I think there’ll be significant breaking out of the logo colour conformity, even as the ethic of this design movement is preserved, for there is no doubt these modern bold graphic designs are here to stay in mainstream quilt making.