I don’t know if it is a ‘women’ thing, specifically, but I have noticed all kinds of little examples down the years in different interest/activity specifically craft/textile related groups I have belonged to in Aus and USA – on the other hand it might be just a ‘belonging’ thing…. Either way, I have to decide what to do about this latest example, and soon.

A piece of my work has been selected for inclusion in a touring exhibition. As if the work itself, the effort and expense of submitting it and then once accepted getting it to its right destination by that deadline were not quite enough….it’s now “Wait! There’s More! ” Someone in the group of selectees has come up with the bright idea how wonderful it would be for each of us to swap fabric postcards (for the unitiated, sort of miniature quiltlets/textile pieces, in the 5inches by 7 inches dimensions. (silmilar to artist trading cards, also undergoing a fad of popularity in quilters/textile artist circles) You opt in or out, it’s nothing to do with the collection itself, and the dates and deadlines are pretty tight for me. One one hand, yes, if I go in for this, it will be very nice to have a number of small hopefully interesting examples of particular people’s original textile art; also, as is often put forward in justification, it IS a chance to try out stuff (techniques, design ideas) on a small scale, even, as someone has suggested, a chance to use up some of the fabric scraps all of us surely have in our workrooms ( amen to that – but using scraps only prompts them to go into rapid breeding mode, IMHE)

I have found myself wondering over the past week since it was suggested, “Do I reeaally want to be diverted along this little side track?” As yet the final number to be made is uncertain, clearly some others are also wavering – but it could be 12, 20, or more, by the deadline. Another part of me has been tossing up “Could this little diversion lead me onto a new, potentially exciting path, perhaps…?”

Is this just akin to the ‘please wear your quilted bargello vest and dowdy denim skirt / fake diamond tiara’ to show you are a quilter attending a quilt event, or the “please follow your tour leader holding a red flag bearing our logo ‘Cultural Tours En Masse’, so we do not lose you” sort of thing – belonging. Being an identifable part of a crowd.

I still have not resolved my intital questions about this phenomenon, but anyway have decided to give it a whirl today; to try to run up a few. They must be easy and quick to make (machine applique and machine quilting) say ‘alison-schwabe-made-this’ , and take me somewhere I want to go experimentally. So, I just came downstairs for a snack, a fresh cuppa and my camera to record the process for I have 6 pieces of fabric and batting cut, and a little machine stitching so far, and already that is telling me this might not be the bogey man I feared. I will post pics and progress later.