Wandering through some of my photos weeding out some not so good ones, and so on, came acrosss this other textile related one , taken down at the sunday market on Tristan Navaja recently. It shows just part of a veritable mountain of 1-3m hanks of bra elastic, various widths, basic colours of black, white and several skin tones, plus an odd pale blue and an awful green which hasn’t been in vogue in undergarments for decades, to my knowledge. Still they do say if you wait around long enough any fashion will come back again. So, is green the coming colour for bras and knickers, perhaps?

Someone said it got down to -5C this morning, I believe it, a strong cold wind and large heavy clouds racing across the sky greeted me as I stepped outside. All day the wind has blown, patches of blue appearing and quickly disapearing, a few spots of rain but not enough to wet the ground. We have very dramatic interesting skies here, which as a sky watcher I find thrilling at times. These are not this morning’s clouds, but those that preceeded a noisy wet windy storm we had a 2-3 weeks ago.

Sorry, these pictures will just not arrange themselves as I have directed them, I must have some finer points to learn yet. The other pic, of a sea mist rolling in over the city on an otherwise sunny day is something that happens quite often here, too. Sometimes it sits there a few hours and then evaporates or blows on, other times, especially winter, it becomes a fog that sits around all day. One time we were flying out, as we boarded the plane we were urged to hurry and be seated as a mist was rolling in and could prevent our scheduled take off. Another interesting plane/departure event was the night a few years ago when a cloud of mosquitoes came aboard with every passenger, it was terrible; people were swinging and swiping at them with papers and magazines, the cabin was not a pretty sight! and the hosties ran out of insecticide before the doors were finally able to be closed for departure. No pic, leaving that one to your imagination.

As I sit here and stitch away, I have been thinking about how multi-skilled contemporary quiltmaking is really prompting us to be. personally I have never seen quiltmaking and my great love, interperpretative stitchery aka creative embroidery as being any more than two backwaters of the same needlearts pond.

So far this piece is really an embroidery with beginning bits done with the aid of bonding/applique – how quickly that enables colour to be laid down. Of course other skills allow that, too , such as painting, spraying, printing of all kinds, various hand dying technqiues and stencilling.

Since the “Tree of Life” quilt, (mid may archive ) I have been thinking about my own personal language via symbols. These received a boost today as I read the posting on Dijanne Cevaals’ blog of some wonderful and carved fabric printing stamps from dried gourds. In one of the comments a responder gave the source of the meanings of many of these , although Dijanne herself with her familiarity with Africa clearly knows and understands what she has acquired, and appropriately with her strong connection with Africa she will probably use them in some interpretive way, too.

As I stitch away, I am listening to Craig Unger’s House of Bush House of Saud which explores the incredible links between the two families which have so influenced American , Middle Eastern and World, politics and economies since the 1970’s. Fascinating even if only a quarter of it is true. Talk about global interconnectedness. Joseph O’connor’s Star of the Sea, set between Ireland, the Atlantic and New York 1847, was wonderfully read by John Kavanagh. Once I am propped up in bed for the night I am reading Che by John Lee Anderson, a large tome which if I read it lying down threatens to break my nose if I nod off. I am enjoying it immensely, having tracked down the book after enjoying the movie Motorcycle Diaries, covering just a couple of years’ travel around the southernpart of South America while Che was still a young man. In the movie it is clear several experiences impact on him deeply, and just suggest why he became such an icon of idealism in the latter C20th. The movie left me wanting to know more about his life.

We woke to a beautiful morning early in Carrasco, then the fog came in, but it seemed to hold promise of a lovely day so with a couple of things on the list to look out for, we headed off downtown to Av. Tristan Navaja, where every sunday rain hail or shine, a ferria, market, takes place. Now in addition to all the produce you can think of, and household goods, you can buy anything from a tap washer to a any kind of battery, pirated and genuine cds and videos, lots of interesing industrial waste/cast off stuff, some antiques, some vintage stuff and plenty of junk. Lots of clothing, shoes and accessories, new, used, and some very old, vintage stuff. Quite a few quite nice fur coats were on offer today…. Down the years we have bought a number of beautiful glasses in ‘sets’ of anything from 1 to5, and I think I have mentioned the several stalls I keep my eye on that stock old needleworked household linens. But there’s one thing I just have not come to yet, and that is selecting and purchasing my bras and knickers from one of the many street vendors…. only some of whom are women.

Our eyes locked onto this home-made Penny-Farthing