Bigger and better than last year, this festival ran for 3 days last week here in a spacious convention location in downtown Montevideo.  For the second year, it has run as part of Art Days, in which vendors and teachers ply their wares and demonstrate products, in some cases conduct classes in them.  The organisers had a large class schedule over the three days, with teachers from Brasil, Argentina, USA and Uruguay  shown on the festival’s Facebook page  On Friday afternoon last week I went down for a look-see.

There was a nicely displayed exhibition of quilts, traditional and modern – for what would a festival be without an exhibition?

There were many people in attendance throughout the festival, and, taking into account that many people were in classes behind closed doors, the patchwork and quilting vendors and demonstrators were pretty busy through the festival.

Check out the carpet design !!!   By the photos I took I think you’ll agree that quilters here are as focused as quilters anywhere when it comes to machines, fabrics, thread, handy accessories, notions and demonstrations.  This year the sewing machine retailers and sponsors Janome and Brother have been joined by Bernina who have a new dealership here in Uruguay.  Great news for a Bernina owner and long term devotee.

There’s an interesting business called Café Costura (literally sewing café) and they also have a FB page:

It works just like an internet cafe – you can go there and sew, use their machines and notions, attend a sewing class or a sew-in, attend a craft class – it’s a neat idea.  I don’t know if they have them in other places, but it has caught on here in Montevideo, apparently.

A new vendor this year was Patchworklady Anna from near Atlántida.  Anna speaks several languages, German, Dutch and English, and I’m sure she’s have Spanish under her belt soon, too – she learned her very good English while quilting and teaching along with a group of women in Australia while there.  Anna’s organizing classes and plans to hold sewing days every few weeks.  You can contact her at palexanna@yahoo.com   The beautiful quilts in this photo are her own work, and demonstrate her lively sense of colour and high technical expertise levels in a variety of popular styles.

A couple of Brasilian ladies from Porto Alegre, were down for the festival again this year, and it was nice to be remembered by Vera Escosteguy (L) and Mariana Pedrozo (R) shown here with some of their fabrics, products and class projects.   They do mail order with fabrics, much appreciated by Uruguayan quiltmakers who can access almost nothing in popular stylish cotton fabrics, unless someone sends or brings something in for them.. it has long been a frustration, but quilters here are managing to work around the situation with help of people like these two women.  You can find them on their website page, Trapos & ARTE   The website will translate into English at one click.  Their FB page has the same title.

There was a terrific stall by an enterprising Argentine Carolina Rizzi who teaches online classes with Cecilia Koppman and several others.  From Carolina I bought a natty little stand for my plastic patchwork templates – the several sizes of squares and triangles both isosceles and equilateral I use, and more. Perhaps I should have bought two – but anyway it will be useful on the work table, and I hope Carolina will be over from BA again before too long.  Her stall was also stocked with lots of different rulers/reglas and all kinds of interesting templates that every quilt shop in the US or Australia routinely carries – but dedicated quilt shops are pretty rare in this part of the world.  Quilters here frequently need to order in (mails and running the gauntlet of customs are always highly risky) or have someone bring thing like this in for them.  Determined quilters are resourceful and they do manage, but it was great to see this kind of thing is more easily available.

From what I saw it was a great success, and a tribute to the enthusiastic and hardworking local patchwork and quilting community, led by Graciela Aznarez,  who arranged it all.

Today it’s raining – not yet cold but I think we’ll be having our first fire in the next day or so for sure.  I received this new scarf and glove set in an end of year secret santa exchange –  I have fellow mahjong player Sally-Anne to thank for them  – they’re black and animal print, my favourite colour!

I’m wondering if it’s possible to wear just too many animal prints in the same outfit?  Because I have a nice warm jacket, and an angora beret in black/grey, both in charcoal/black jungle print and they go together well – however adding the scarf plus trimmed gloves to that might all be a bit much!  Oh, and I have a couple of pairs of animal print jeans and pants …

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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