Big E and Manchester quilt show
Sep. 21st, 2008 10:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brownthrasherWe got back late last night. We went to the fair Friday am, got there about 12ish. Parking is a nightmare, even with a special pass. We went straight to the New England building to see the creative arts. Yea! I got a second place ribbon!
Wow, there were a lot of second place ribbons.
Yeaah, looking later, I tied for second, with nine other people. I think I know what they were doing, tiering people rather than declaring a strict ranking order. But I'm a competitive sort, I'd rather have a more definitive idea of my place. Oh well. There were some beautiful mirabilia/lavender and lace patterns, a nice one of a train in a snowy countryside. I think mine was the only one without glass. And one of the smaller ones. You still can't get close enough to see how they were judged. The blue ribbon I think went to a big piece featuring mickey mouse and disney world. The quilts...there were a couple nice bright pieces, and one nice seascene with lacey jellyfish and appliqued fish, but they were mostly forgotten about by the next day.
The fair itself...I was disappointed. I was expecting something more the size of the fairs in Phoenix or Columbus. This seemed more like Yakima. Scratch that, I think Yakima had a bigger fair. Maybe it's that I don't look at the rides as much? Maybe I was with someone who didn't want to eat horribly fried food? Maybe I'm just older? No, I think it was smaller. We did buy some nice sheepskin products...I got some slippers ($40) and Louise got a hat. The barns there for the animals were large, they had cows and sheep, we watched a sheep-shearing display. Louise was really fascinated by the hand spinning. We had cream puffs, donuts, lobster rolls, I had some maple cream. There was a parade, that kept us from leaving early (it turns out there was another gate we could go through). Would I go again next year? I don't know.
(Eta: Note the Ohio State fair is the largest in the country, with 300 acres and about 3 million visitors. The Big E is 175 acres (half for parking) and 1.3 million people. And Yakima was technically a state fair too, Washington has three.)
Then we went to Manchester on Saturday for mancuso, the world quilt show. I was expecting something more like Lowell this time. But the focus seemed to be more on the vendors than the quilts. It might have been different if I'd signed up for a workshop. These were quilts from about eight different countries. The most amazing one was a tumbling block pattern, where each quadrilateral was made of 36 hexagons about a half centimeter big. Imagine a quilt 460x460 blocks square. Crazy. There were a lot of artsy quilts, which made me realize I like the clean looks of the rotary quilts better. I really noticed background fabrics this time, how they can make/break a quilt. One had a lovely variegating blue to white that radiated out from the center. A couple gray on black tones bothered me. And of course threadpainting is just lovely. I still expect being an artist is a prerequisite for that. You could get up close to the quilts to really see technique. There were a lot of origami quilts from one teacher too. We bought lots of stuff...I got random fabrics, two kits, two patterns, fork pins, and a lint roller. Louise may have picked up a new hobby. And I'm still looking at those rotary cutters. Next year...I may go back to Lowell.
Or, there seems to be a needleart convention in Nashua next spring. Maybe I would try that.
Wow, there were a lot of second place ribbons.
Yeaah, looking later, I tied for second, with nine other people. I think I know what they were doing, tiering people rather than declaring a strict ranking order. But I'm a competitive sort, I'd rather have a more definitive idea of my place. Oh well. There were some beautiful mirabilia/lavender and lace patterns, a nice one of a train in a snowy countryside. I think mine was the only one without glass. And one of the smaller ones. You still can't get close enough to see how they were judged. The blue ribbon I think went to a big piece featuring mickey mouse and disney world. The quilts...there were a couple nice bright pieces, and one nice seascene with lacey jellyfish and appliqued fish, but they were mostly forgotten about by the next day.
The fair itself...I was disappointed. I was expecting something more the size of the fairs in Phoenix or Columbus. This seemed more like Yakima. Scratch that, I think Yakima had a bigger fair. Maybe it's that I don't look at the rides as much? Maybe I was with someone who didn't want to eat horribly fried food? Maybe I'm just older? No, I think it was smaller. We did buy some nice sheepskin products...I got some slippers ($40) and Louise got a hat. The barns there for the animals were large, they had cows and sheep, we watched a sheep-shearing display. Louise was really fascinated by the hand spinning. We had cream puffs, donuts, lobster rolls, I had some maple cream. There was a parade, that kept us from leaving early (it turns out there was another gate we could go through). Would I go again next year? I don't know.
(Eta: Note the Ohio State fair is the largest in the country, with 300 acres and about 3 million visitors. The Big E is 175 acres (half for parking) and 1.3 million people. And Yakima was technically a state fair too, Washington has three.)
Then we went to Manchester on Saturday for mancuso, the world quilt show. I was expecting something more like Lowell this time. But the focus seemed to be more on the vendors than the quilts. It might have been different if I'd signed up for a workshop. These were quilts from about eight different countries. The most amazing one was a tumbling block pattern, where each quadrilateral was made of 36 hexagons about a half centimeter big. Imagine a quilt 460x460 blocks square. Crazy. There were a lot of artsy quilts, which made me realize I like the clean looks of the rotary quilts better. I really noticed background fabrics this time, how they can make/break a quilt. One had a lovely variegating blue to white that radiated out from the center. A couple gray on black tones bothered me. And of course threadpainting is just lovely. I still expect being an artist is a prerequisite for that. You could get up close to the quilts to really see technique. There were a lot of origami quilts from one teacher too. We bought lots of stuff...I got random fabrics, two kits, two patterns, fork pins, and a lint roller. Louise may have picked up a new hobby. And I'm still looking at those rotary cutters. Next year...I may go back to Lowell.
Or, there seems to be a needleart convention in Nashua next spring. Maybe I would try that.
