Uruguay is a major fine merino wool producer, right up there with Australia and New Zealand, so here in Montevideo yesterday (Saturday June 13th) together with a good friend Dalehl and my patient hubby Mike, I visited the 6th Expolana.uy. I confess I was a bit surprised to find I’d never heard of the previous five until a couple of weeks ago 😉 and wonder how did it not appear on my radar until now?
Last year I bought a remnant piece of fine, moss-green 100% wool fabric, thinking I’d back another work with it, but then didn’t, but as green is my favourite colour, it’s grown on me while it was sitting around my studio all that time. So I’ve decided to work something on it as the front of a wall quilt. Once a Girl Guide, always a Girl Guide, and their motto “Be Prepared” was motivation to attend this expo from the time I saw it advertised, and I took along a snippet of the green wool… I was on the lookout for “materials” to use for something to enter into ArtQuiltAustralia 27 wool quilt category, but I’ve since learned there probably won’t be a wool quilt category in ASA27, as the sponsorhip agreement has not been renewed, so far anyway. However, this one needs making, and there’ll be another worthy entry call for it.
Vendors were principally selling wool and various equipments for use in the common fibrearts and crafts, and there was everything from crochet hooks and knitting needles to spinning wheels, from wool roving to knitting and embroidery threads, and small weaving looms to needle felting thingies. There were some finished items like knitted beanies, scarves and jumpers, ruanas, and even some jewellery featuring wool fabric inserts, but it was specifically oriented to crafters – the knitters, crocheters, stitchers, felters, spinners and weavers among us.
As a stitcher, I was pleased to find this box of fine, eco-dyed 100% merino wool from Patagonia, Argentina, suitable for embroidery, just after I’d bought the skein of multi-colored hand spun wool. The spun wool vendor, from Minas UY, invites interested kids to choose a few colours of rovings, which she then uses to demonstrate spinning, and sells these demo samples at subsequent shows. From our conversation we’ll meet again, for sure, and if needs be I’ll be able to get more, I know.
We adjourned to the MAPI museum in the Old City of Montevideo for coffee and a sandwich, and as I hadn’t seen Avocado on toast on a menu here before, I ordered that with a cappucino –
Once refuelled, we took a look at the amazing central American masks that have been showing a while now. And there’s a new exhibition of forests and trees by a Uruguayan artist Carmela Piñón, beautifully painted and some forest and stream sounds played softly in the background, but it seemed bit ordinary, until I read this wordy statement giving insight into their importance to the indigenous people here. Interestingly, if the docent on dury had been able to tell me what the word jeike meant, I’d have got it sooner. In the Museum’s own collection exhibition area I was taken with some fresh archaeological items from the Andean part of NW Peru. MAPI’s a favourite museum here in Montevideo, and we visit several times a year – and a bonus is that to seniors with UY residence cards entry is free… which is always nice.
