Strike at Spectra
Jul. 29th, 2011 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyYesterday my mother and I had our annual craft-and-culture trip to Melbourne. We went to the craft fair in the morning, splitting up and doing our respective things. Every year at the craft fair, there is one thing that's everywhere. The first year, it was dragons. Quilts, cross-stitch, beads, dragons, dragons, dragons. Last year, it was what I call patty cakes and you might call cupcakes. This year, owls. I also saw several patterns featuring matryoshka dolls, so maybe that's an early guess for next year's popular thing.
I went to a workshop on arm knitting. That's knitting on your arms rather than needles. I thought it sounded like an interesting novelty and was surprised to find it was standing room only. Fifty chairs full and as many people again lining the walls. It turns out arm knitting is exactly what it sounds like. She cast seven enormous stitches on her hand and then knitted a whole ball of (thick) wool into a scarf over twenty minutes while she was talking. One woman asked what she'd do if she had to put the knitting down; well, she said, it takes fifteen minutes to make a scarf, so go to the loo and have a drink before you start and you won't need to. She had made some interesting pieces — things partly knitted on her arms and partly on needles, felted, shaped — but I don't think I'll take it up myself.
After lunch my mother and I headed to the National Gallery for the winter masterpieces exhibition, which this year is Vienna: Art and Design. Klimt and Moll and that crowd. Jolly good stuff and a lot of uncomfortable chairs. After that we went back fifty years to the Eugene von Guérard exhibition. He was a German landscape painter who came to Australia in the nineteenth century. Very good at clouds. My mother's new shoes were rubbing so we took the lift rather than the stairs to get to the level the exhibition was on. It's obviously the lift they use to move the art about too, because it was bigger than my living room.
Coming home on the train, I read the newspaper and realised why the arm knitting lady was so popular: she was in a 'what's on today' feature. Here she is in a different paper.
It was half-past ten when I got home and Percy was stretched out on the sofa, making himself at home. I was reading my mail and waiting for the kettle to boil when another cat shot past me, running from the front end of the house and out the cat window. I don't know who was more surprised: me or it. It certainly wasn't Percy, who didn't even seem to notice.
I went to a workshop on arm knitting. That's knitting on your arms rather than needles. I thought it sounded like an interesting novelty and was surprised to find it was standing room only. Fifty chairs full and as many people again lining the walls. It turns out arm knitting is exactly what it sounds like. She cast seven enormous stitches on her hand and then knitted a whole ball of (thick) wool into a scarf over twenty minutes while she was talking. One woman asked what she'd do if she had to put the knitting down; well, she said, it takes fifteen minutes to make a scarf, so go to the loo and have a drink before you start and you won't need to. She had made some interesting pieces — things partly knitted on her arms and partly on needles, felted, shaped — but I don't think I'll take it up myself.
After lunch my mother and I headed to the National Gallery for the winter masterpieces exhibition, which this year is Vienna: Art and Design. Klimt and Moll and that crowd. Jolly good stuff and a lot of uncomfortable chairs. After that we went back fifty years to the Eugene von Guérard exhibition. He was a German landscape painter who came to Australia in the nineteenth century. Very good at clouds. My mother's new shoes were rubbing so we took the lift rather than the stairs to get to the level the exhibition was on. It's obviously the lift they use to move the art about too, because it was bigger than my living room.
Coming home on the train, I read the newspaper and realised why the arm knitting lady was so popular: she was in a 'what's on today' feature. Here she is in a different paper.
It was half-past ten when I got home and Percy was stretched out on the sofa, making himself at home. I was reading my mail and waiting for the kettle to boil when another cat shot past me, running from the front end of the house and out the cat window. I don't know who was more surprised: me or it. It certainly wasn't Percy, who didn't even seem to notice.