Stitches & Craft Show, Sydney

Had a great day on Sunday at the Stitches & Craft Show at Darling Harbour. I have only been once before a few years ago. The show has many more stalls and the quilt display was totally awe-inspiring. Some extremely talented people.

Many different styles of patchwork and quilting. Incredible designs and colours, here's just a sample of the work on display. I love the design here...

..and the colours chosen for the quilt below.


I am still a great lover of the scrap quilts though, and the whole idea of 'making something out of nothing' as was the original concept to use up old scraps for bed covers. I'm sure many of us started a quilt like this one with cardboard templates, only to run out of patience and decide that patchwork wasn't for us!

How far they have evolved now though, to become works of art that you wouldn't dream of using as a simple bed cover.

Some very inspiring Australiana designs....

Some beautiful Japanese designs and fabrics.

This owl quilt was incredible.

A beautiful three-panel quilt which looks like a tribute to mothers everywhere..

I did spend alot of time looking at the 'fantasy' themed quilts.. can't imagine how many hours of intensive work they took to complete not to mention the creativity involved. Alot of them used different techniques and mediums which combined to produce a stunning work of art that was hard to tear your eyes away from.

There's no doubt at all, from the level of talent featured by HSC and TAFE students, that the boundaries will continue to be pushed in all area's of textile mediums to produce even more incredible designs.

Finally, I couldn't end the post without making mention of my absolute favourite quilt of the show - if I really had to decide. Wendy Bailye was the Guest Artist of the Quilt Show (presented by the Quilters' Guild of NSW).

The quilting detail as you can see below was awesome. Being a potter myself, I love the theme and the research that obviously went into the design of the pots.

Here's Wendy chatting about the quilts and her designs. Incredible to think that she's only been making quilts for 6 years. Prior to that, she was an artist in other mediums. The one featured above was created by bleaching out area's on black fabric, then heavy quilting over the entire piece.

It was well worth attending the show just to gaze in awe at Wendy's quilts which featured many different theme's, from Australiana to a beautiful African inspired quilt, and to hear her talk about her work. Very inspirational.

But of course, we ran out of time. So we headed back out of Darling Harbour with a head full of fresh idea's and newly inspired to dig out the sewing machine....

..past the ferris wheel...

..past Chinatown...

..and trying to remember where we parked the car!

Rod Stewart

What a great interview, Andrew Denton with Rod Stewart the other night on ABC....
Always loved his music; but it was his honesty, humility & down-to-earth nature that really shone through...

ANDREW DENTON: What was it like for you eh, you’d been playing for a long time? You’d been in various bands including The Faces and then suddenly all around the world this was a number one hit. What was that…?
ROD STEWART: Ah tremendous. I think it probably you know, the most pleasure I got out of it was I saw in me mum and dad’s eyes at the time, you know that they were so proud of me because they never once told me when I was struggling musician go and get a job or you’re never going to make it. They believed in me, so I think that was probably the biggest pleasure I, you know, the look in their eyes. I remember it to this day.
ANDREW: By the end of the decade punk came along, and the punk people declared you as a, as a boring old fart.
ROD STEWART: They were quite right.
***

ROD STEWART: The punk thing was like ’75, ’76, ’77, and then I did do a big bandwagon jump in and I did disco. Forgot about that one, you bastard. I was hoping you wouldn’t bring that up.
ANDREW DENTON: Well, I was going to refer to it as ‘The Spandex Years’ actually.
ROD STEWART: Yeah, ‘The old Spandex Years’. What a pair of legs I had in those days. ANDREW DENTON: You’ve said you were a hero for some of the stuff you wore. What are some of the outfits you remember?
ROD STEWART: Oh I think the most bizarre one was with the, with The Faces, where I used to put, you know, those feather boas. I used to wear three round me waist — red, yellow, any colours — but I always wore three. I mean it looked like a ballerinas tutu but I got away with it. I think I got away with it, and then I had the spandex cutaway which just showed two nipples. My kids look at these pictures now and think - dad, how could you do it? But you look back on what you wore and it all seemed OK at the time. It’s only in retrospect you look and you go - oh my God, what was I doing, you know?

ANDREW DENTON: ‘With Do You Think I’m Sexy?’, you donated the royalties for that to UNICEF. Why was that?
ROD STEWART: Um, I don’t know why. I think it had something to do, cos I nicked the song.
ANDREW DENTON: Would you call yours a great voice?ROD STEWART: I would call it distinct. I wouldn’t say it’s a great voice compared to Pavarotti, the late Pavarotti. I mean that’s technically a brilliant voice, but I think mine’s very distinct and it’s very eh, very emotional and I think it can at times, tug on the heart strings.

One of my all-time favourites; -

Have I told you lately that I love you
Have I told you there's no one else above you
Fill my heart with gladness
take away all my sadness
ease my troubles that's what you do

For the morning sun in all it's glory
greets the day with hope and comfort too
You fill my life with laughter
and somehow you make it better
ease my troubles that's what you do
There's a love that's divine
and it's yours and it's mine like the sun
And at the end of the day
we should give thanks and pray
to the one, to the one

Have I told you lately that I love you
Have I told you there's no one else above you
Fill my heart with gladness
take away all my sadness
ease my troubles that's what you do

There's a love that's divine
and it's yours and it's mine like the sun
And at the end of the day
we should give thanks and pray
to the one, to the one

And have I told you lately that I love you
Have I told you there's no one else above you
You fill my heart with gladness
take away my sadness
ease my troubles that's what you do
Take away all my sadness
fill my life with gladness
ease my troubles that's what you do
Take away all my sadness
fill my life with gladness
ease my troubles that's what you do

Ahh, Rodders...gotta luv ya!! Thanks for the music.