QCE Show, take 2

There are two additional sets of pictures from the Quilt Company East's 3 Lakes show that I haven't posted, mostly because I felt they fell into separate categories other than just quilt. First, we'll talk soft sculpture. AKA awesome.

part of the soft sculpture exhibit

                                                     

                                                                 Eslinger the Dragon, and his beautiful wings

 So, if you haven't guessed, I'm an fantastical beasts kind of person. Have always loved fairy tales - I'm loving ABC's Once Upon a Time with it's undercurrents of the redemption of creation. Something about fairytales that has always fascinated me is relates to a principle of physics - to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Now it took us until Newton to put stuff like that into words, but somewhere, people had an understanding of this in their subconcious. Death curses broken love. Even Russian fairytales - take Sleeping Beauty, for example. Story didn't end - sorry, Disney - with the Philip and Aurora dancing in the castle with Aurora's magic pink-and-blue gown (purple, ladies? nice compromise there, what say?) Aurora and Philip move in with none other than Philip's mother. Maybe it was step mother, that part is a little dicey, and of course, it would have been rude to toss her out on her ear just because the young couple is ready to start life together. Aurora and Philip have two beautifully radiant children, a boy and a girl, and everything is wonderful until Philip has to ride off to war, leaving behind Aurora and the children. And Grandmere. Who, at this point it is incumbent to mention, is an ogress. An ogress with a tooth for manflesh, as the Orcs put it. In this case, her grandchildren.

So for a recap up to this point; death curse, love everlasting, cannibalistic grandma. What is the chief cook supposed to do when the Queen asks for her grandson trussed on a platter as a turkey? Kidnap the boy and serve up veal instead. This sounds vaguely familliar... who else asked for manflesh served up in cold blood? Snow White's step mother, who was handed the heart of a doe instead. Our poor chief cook does the veal trick again with the granddaughter, and finally, needing something a little bigger than a calf to serve up for an adult woman, serves up venison in place of lovely Aurora, who meanwhile is reunited with her children in the deep places of the castle for their protection.

The story ends with Gramma getting her comeuppance. Curse, antidote, curse, antidote. Equal and opposite reaction. I'm fairly certain it is a literary device with an actual name; what this is I don't know. I do know it is a universal theme, even if it means that the protagonists beat the odds by being united in death as stars, or rivers, or things of that nature. We all know this, even if we say "Yes, but the world doesn't work that way, good doesn't always triumph over evil." Not immediately, no.

But ask anyone who, while dealing with an immediate problem, left loose ends in the form of infant children to survive. It came full circle.

coming into the finish line.

as an assessment of the semester, we're far from being done yet, but there are only three or four more weeks of class left. But I'm feeling like I got hit with something in the shins. Man down!


I took a little time yesterday to go to the Quilt Company East guild show. I feel like I missed a large chunk of the show - there's no way I saw 140 quilts yesterday, even if some of them were three dimensional fiber forms. And I totally missed the Martha Washington guild show in Washington... but after the events of Friday, I wasn't about to take another jaunt in the country.


*We pause for a moment to interest Lydia Kitty in a game in the kitchen where the linoleum floor allows mousie to move with decided alacrity*

P.A. Farmer's Market 2009,  G.B., Jeanette

Beach Balls, J.B., Penn Hills

                                 

Josh's Quilt

detail. that's my thumb.

                                                  

                                                                          Phoenix Rising, G.B., Wilkensburg

                         East Indian Rain Music, J.J., Oakmont

Peripatetic Album

Detail, Peripatetic, J.S., Export

Murphy's Lap, A.D., Squirrel Hill

Murphy

Color Full Trees, M.B., Penn Hills

   

                          

                          My Favorite Color - N.O., Murrysville

N.Y. Beauty loves Silky Fabrics, E.S., Pgh.

This was from the Show Challenge. The fabric they incorporated for the challenge is featured in the center of the prize rosette.

 Second runner up, Challenge category:

Lost in the Badlands, T.M., Greensburg

Nature's Triple Play

A.H., Pittsburgh, NTP

blue stocking.

So. Here's dolly. Jointed at the shoulders and hips. Kitteh is jealous.

She is a Bas Bleu! But that dress simply will not do, it is stiff with glue.

So we make something new. 

And we soak the old dress off, and look for a maker's mark. 

No marks. Just glue residue.

 

                         Alas! Too big! Take in the sides!
                               Now for an under skirt.
                         Something with a little frou-frou for
                               Mademoiselle Babette Bleu.








                                 Viola! C'est magnifique!







Que es une "Bas Bleu", says you?
Bas bleu, the French equivalent of a Bluestocking, refers to an intellectual woman; up until the late 18th century, it referred to learned folk of both genders. The term later developed negative connotations [read:frumpy]. Beliefs persist [obviously] about the need for women to dress fashionably; an old saying is "women don't become bluestockings until men have tired of looking at their legs". Another prejudice, attributed to William Hazlitt goes something like "The bluestocking is the most odious character in society ... she sinks wherever she is placed, like the yolk of an egg, to the bottom, and carries the filth with her."