I haven't posted in just about forever, while my nose was becoming well-acquainted with the grindstone in preparation for Bazaar Bizarre.
Now that BB is over, I have a little cold and a little sunburn, but the effort was pretty successful, and I couldn't have had a better time. Now it's time to branch out into some other projects I've been wanting to get to (including, possibly, another peanut quilt) and, of course, finishing up my samples for the MTV Style Lounge. A shopper at BB envied my sewing and embroidery projects, because she guessed - correctly - that all that work meant lots of hours in front of the TV.
I should be well entertained this week, because my return to a normal schedule coincided, yesterday, with the return of the US Senate to Washington. This is my dirty little secret: I watch C-SPAN 2 obsessively.
One of the highlights was meeting the editors of the upcoming Craft Magazine, one of whom is also a blogger over at the MAKE blog. They had a lot to say about quilting, and questions about the changes in quilting over time.
Actually, now that I think about it, everyone asks me that.
What's interesting is that is that quilting haven't changed. It's the quilters who have. It's American life that's changed. That's why I bring up my love of politics. Years ago, quilting and embroidery were a way to keep women occupied, quiet, and out of debate. Remember Henry James' Washington Square? Now, with technology being what it is, my hands can live the life of a busy little homemaker, while my eyes and ears can be devoted to, among other things, being an informed citizen.
Quilting is such a slow, quiet art that I think it surprises people that I'm not nostalgic for a slow, quiet time in history. I love high-speed internet. I love high-speed EVERYTHING!!! I love living in an image-saturated era - I think it's good for design, and I think the freedom to seek out new aspects of good design is the major difference between traditional quilting and it more modern incarnations. I love vintage quilts, by the way, but there's a big difference between trying to make good design choices out of muslin and a pile of your husband's shirts, and trying to make good design choices when you have thousands of cotton prints at your fingertips.
Speaking of cotton prints, I may need to spend some of my BB earnings on cool Japanese imports. More on this later.
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