This quilt, Ebb & Flow 10, was completed in 2005, and appeared in the solo exhibition I had that year at the Australian Embassy in Washington DC. It is one of a series of quilts with this title, the theme of which is how various aspects of Life change constantly, ebbing and flowing with highs and lows, as with the restless ocean tides.

Although I had been very keen on it during the making, between beginning the quilting and finishing off the binding, somehow some reservations about it developed in my mind. Ideally some of the murky green would have been a perfect binding – but there was none left – this piecing takes a lot of fabric, it can be surprising. Next possibility was a turn back facing, but I had fallen love with a hot pink with fine black pin dots on it, and put that on – I thought it looked good,at the time. But it didn’t seem to attract much interest at the solo or the another public airing here late last year.

Recently an interesting exhibition opportunity for this quilt came up, and I realised I only had gallery shots, not suitable for submitting on cd for jurying. So some new pics would need to be shot – and just before my appointment with Eduardo the photographer, I determined to change the binding on this one. Rummaging in the cupboard I found a mauve fabric, bought only in the past year but one I had still not been inspired to cut into (something occasionally happens between the shop and the workroom) It’s a difficult colour, perhaps, and I am not really sure why I bought it (for the challenge?) – but anyway it turned out to be perfect for this quilt’s new binding…. see photo below. Only a small change, but it makes a big difference. Oh, and IMHO, does not change the quilt sufficiently to re-date it or re-title it, either!

So this photo is of the newly bound quilt with the mauve binding.
The hot pink with black pin dots has been pinned to the front to give an idea of what it used
to look like – in such haste to get the old binding off I didn’t think of taking a snap for the record
before I removed it.

Views of part of the processing and display areas of the plant, an Aladdin’s Cave if ever there was. Masses of colours, masses of samples, various hides used, from really fine small animals to large cattle and, clearly, horse hides (Uruguay exports horsemeat to France) The place is not at all modern BUT what is coming out of there in terms of innovation and experimentation is wonderful. Refer back to my recent post on ‘Studios’. This works.

I could not walk away without any of these pieces from this leather place ! it was hard to choose, and perhaps not a bad thing I wasn’t carrying a larger amount of cash that day!

UL- A fine leather with metallicised finish in a very muted geometric crazy paving look.
UR – A very rough suede ‘rustico’, looks rather battered but in addition to a few holes (love them) there are subtle smudges of dark gold/bronze paint randomly here and there.
LL -a really fine piece of suede, like a car washing chamois, drapes beautifully, one side dusted with old gold.
LR – another rustic looking piece, very rough in finish, shreds hanging off in some areas, holes of course, in a deep charcoal or very dull faded blackish colour.

Will I use these? I certainly plan to, including thinking about some ways to use the holey parts whey they occur. Working small… Textured stitchery? Mounted on small artist mount/frame thingies? … I’m thinking, and with this in mind plan to acquire a serious stapler today.

Returning home through a part of the city unfamiliar to me, but which apparently DH passes through regularly on the way to and from a government office where he gets maps and mining information, we came across this wonderful little delivery vehicle parked outside its supermarket on the corner. As luck would have it my camera was in my bag.

There are lots of these in Montevideo, very popular for supermarket deliveries especially, although a well known pool servicing firm uses them and these are a sight I do mean to capture on er, pixel, one day, with the long handled mesh strainer scooop thing plus other equipment tied to the luggage rack on the top.

Anyway I think this one is perhaps the most beautiful and certainly the wittiest I have seen. The contents of the grocery cart are all actual brand names that the supermarket would carry – I wonder is this an adversiters’ sponsored paint job? the quirky appearance of the UR corner of this photo is due not to fancy photoshop editing but a white trim on the building on that side of the street – I decided not to change anything, quite liking the quirky appearance of this photo.

Eat your heart out, Mr Bean !