Muestra de Colchas y Tapices de Retazos

Twice last week I visited an exhibition of pieced bed coverings made in several different rural areas of Uruguay – some of the historic antique pieces which Las Traperas, Uruguay’s group of patchwork quilters, have been researching over the past year or so.  The exhibition fits right into the rural theme of this year’s Dia del Patrimonio, held over last weekend, in which many buildings and facilities not always open to the public were open for the people of Uruguay to visit and appreciate.

Well lit, and beautifully set out in the events centre at the Alliance Francaise, Bvd. Artigas 1229  , it is open daily through friday october 2nd,  from 10am to 8pm.

Made by a resident of Rocha in the 1950’s, Olga Pereira, this bold log cabin style was constructed from I would say, dressmaking offcuts, and the combination of black, lights and brights, and lots of bright red really blew me away.  The red centres are of a large variety of different fabrics ranigning from heavy wool to light silk, but all bright red, and this glows.   It’s about 1.75m x 1.2m and has a wool binding in a couple of different browns. 

Next, a very interesting item – a beautifully knitted and fringed throw rug or summer bedspread, and, get this – knitted out of the string that sewed the sides and tops of sacks of sugar – carefully pulled out,  washed and wound and saved – (over how many years? ) before being knitted up ! From the 1940s.-

It was knitted in sections, as join shows  diagonally placed in the lower part of the picture.  Clearly the knitter would have had an impossible taks to splice every end – there were so many of them – so she knotted the ends and left them exposed, making a lovely additional surface texture on one side.  Presumably the top side, as this was the one turned out for us to see.  Well, I guess it didn’t matter, which ever way the user wanted it would be right.

I think it’s gorgeous.

You can find further pictures of pieces in this show by going to

http://picasaweb.google.com/Alison.Schwabe/UruguayHistoricTextilesAndBedCovers2009Exhibition?feat=directlink

Another fuzzy head gear item demanding to be noticed – see  ‘Road Safety With a Flair’ post below, august 23rd last.  

This young woman was checking her emails in an airline lounge I was in recently.  At first I thought this was  a mass of hair held in place by a wide white head band….

I might have to get out my 1960’s fuzzy head gear in this category – the one DH calls the ‘elephant scrotum’.  If you hang on to something it’s bound to come back into fashion again – I have never been able to force myself to part with it .

 The SAQA online silent auction has almost ended week 1.   Results have been marvellous, and the few quilts remaining at the close of this phase today at 1-59pm will then be available for the next couple of months through the SAQA online bookshop/store. 

Buying one of these small works is a good way to begin an art quilt collection, and some collectors come back and buy a piece every year.  It’s one only work per artist, so I hope someone reeeeeally wants mine, making my contribution worth as much as posssible. … buy today and it go for $750 which would be marvellous…. The  group of quilts containing my work   “Timetracks 12”   (page 2b, scroll down to row 10/14)   begins today at 2pm Eastern USA time.

Studio Art Quilts Associates activities focus on raising the profile of this art medium with galleries and the art collecting public through curated exhibitions of all kinds, in the US and internationally, when possible with catalogues; and regular publications of members’ work in book and digital form.   Members are scattered around the world, and Aussie members have been well represented in SAQA exhibitions.    

Follow this link to see every one of this year’s 234 small works pictured, and an outline of how the auction is conducted.  http://www.saqa.com/hotnews.aspx?id=190   I hope you will find something there to your  taste, and if not already a collector,  perhaps you’ll begin your collection today!

This quilt, “Sunburnt Fragments” , shown here at the entry to my 2005 solo echibition in Washington DC, found a new home recently when it was auctioned in aid of The Royal Flying Doctor Service and the West Australian Breast Cancer Foundation at the Patching By The Port.    This triennial regional quilters retreat/symposium is held in Esperance Western Australia in support of RFDS,  and this year the additional cause.  For some reason I had not been told or just didn’t realise the fundraising aspect of the symposium, but once  I did,  I was happy to provide this quilt for auction at the final dinner, and delighted to see the reserve price exceeded slightly.  The new owner, Lynne Beros, runs one of the two fabric shops in the town, and I’m sure the quilt will be able to be seen and enjoyed by regulars and visitors to her shop at least from time to time.

On a wet day in Fremantle earlier this week,  this head gear really caught my eye as I crossed the road to a bookshop, its wearer entering just ahead of me.  I couldn’t resist asking Jeremy, as he turned out to be, to allow me to take a pic as he prepared to go on his way.  He has several, apparently – slip on covers that go over his cycle helmet.   He was such a good sport about a zany request from a strange woman, but  as he was in a hurry I didn’t have time to ask him who makes them – perhaps Perth-ites have seen them around and know where to get them.  I thought it wonderful that a guy would wear something so, well, eye catching.  And that’s the whole point, of course !