Politics and quilts

[mellicious]

My aunt was shocked, SHOCKED, to find out that somebody in her family was pro-choice. Heh. (I refrained from pointing out that since she didn't speak to any of us for nearly 20 years, she doesn't really know me very well.)

She seems truly to think that Obama is insincere. I see plenty of faults in Obama, but I do believe he's sincere in what he's trying to do. (I started to say, "What do y'all think?" but since my friendslist is pretty overwhelmingly liberal I suspect you guys are mostly going to agree with me.) The fact is, I see the world in such a different way from my relatives, maybe the meme below is right.

You Should Live in a Blue State

Your preferences are 80% Blue, 20% Red You may not vote Democrat, but you feel comfortable around people who do. You tend to do best in bluer states - like California or New York. You fit in with an educated, urban, progressive crowd.

Should You Live in a Red State or a Blue State?

(Hell, I'd move in a heartbeat if all the blue places I'd like to live weren't all so damn cold.)


So, I went to the quilt show. I went zipping through the whole thing - exhibitions, vendors and all - in a little over four hours. (People who haven't been there and don't know how incredibly big this thing is will not appreciate this achievement.) I did not take a single picture - I didn't even take the camera, actually, for the first time in ten years or so. It certainly made things move much faster! I walked up and down every single aisle and at least glanced at every quilt and every vendor. I'm not sure what my aunt was talking about, about the quilts being better than usual - I will have to ask her. I mean, they were good, but I always think they are good. Here is the winners list, with pictures. Sharon Schamber won Best of Show for the second time - that seems to have become a pattern lately, actually. Her thing is that she does really fabulous machine quilting - which, of course, you can't see at all in that picture. (Here's a detail from one of her other BoS, though.)

I only bought a couple of things, amazingly, and only one of them was a quilting thing. I bought a pattern (a pattern! I never buy patterns!) for a quilted crown, of all things. It looks like stained glass and it came with the stiff foundation material, along with the pattern, and it was just so cute I couldn't resist. I used to be known as the "Princess of Chat" on TUS, as some of you know, and so crowns have a sort of odd significance for me. Besides, crowns are just cool. (Oh look, here are the crowns - mine is the one at the very bottom.) Then I bought a finished pair of polymer clay earrings, and a bunch of pewter beads - just spacers, mostly. That was it.

I didn't notice a lot of new trends at the quilt show, generally, but if I did, I would say that embellishments was one. Every other vendor had beads and fibers and paints and things like that. Oh, and you know what? I saw a surprising number of teenagers there. I hope that's a good sign for the future of quilting, because quilters in the 20-35 range are still awfully rare. It seems like there was a generation skip there, or something. (I'm aware I'm not the first person to notice this!)  

Oh, and there was a whole exhibit of political quilts - some very funny ones, too. Somebody did a whole series of quilts about recent elections - so there was one with the Clintons and the Doles, for example. (Bob and Bill were having a chicken fight on their wives' shoulders, no less.)

Comments

[profrobert.livejournal.com]

"Hell, I'd move in a heartbeat if all the blue places I'd like to live weren't all so damn cold."

Yeah, that California, particularly the south -- bitter, bitter cold. ;-)

[chanfaina.livejournal.com]

It's blue (mostly...although there's Pasadena and chunks of San Diego and the area behind the dreaded Orange Curtain), but I'm betting the "I'd like to live [there]" is a problem.

It's not for everyone, that's for certain. And if you aren't from here, it takes a whole lot of getting used to.

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

I was mostly thinking about the northeast. (Or maybe Canada, although I know that's not exactly a blue state!) I somehow am not a Northwest sort of person. And frankly, I know this is just one of those things, but practically everything everybody who lives there says about California is negative. Except for the weather. And maybe the fruit.

Really the problem is that ALL the blue states are a long way from here, and much as I gripe about Texas, it's home. So I'll just content myself with moving to Austin, one of these days.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but California is full of insane people. Unlike Massachusetts!