Un Embarras de Richesses

I spent yesterday at 'Textiles In Focus', a combination of an exhibition of student's work in both weaving and embroidery, and a cornucopia of shopping opportunities, known collectively as 'the Traders', but in fact a gathering of interesting small suppliers, from Art Van Go, who seem to carry everything art related that you could ever imagine (and then some), to tiny specialist suppliers that focus on a particular part of the market. The picture is just two of the (rather a lot of) yarns I bought, aren't they wonderful? I'm looking forward to couching those onto velvet and silk, in particular. Not that I have any money left to buy said velvets and silks...

What is it about these exhibitions that brings out my desire to spend, spend, spend? I think it's the sheer excitement of a collection of specialist shops that cater to my arty whims. That said, I do use the stuff I buy. Honest! I overheard one woman say to another, I've bought this, but I suspect it'll still be in a bag in six months time... I thought, what? Surely the point of buying stuff is not to keep it, but to play with it? But then, here speaks a woman whose stash is dwindling to the point of almost not being there. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I have given away or sold a lot of cloth. And other than a bit of lutradur, I didn't buy any yesterday, which I'm pleased about! But those fibres were something else...

Of course, an exhibition is not just about shopping (though sometimes it feels that way). The joy of Textiles in Focus is that it offers comfy armchairs to sit in whilst perusing the work. And I was reminded, as I looked at it, that the rules of the quilting world don't apply in embroiderers' circles. Work joyfully rippled down the walls, with interesting irregular edges. It sat comfortably in frames. None of it would have got very far in a juried quilt show, but all of it was, in its own way, beautiful. I'm not a regularly shaped quilt...I'm a piece of joyful embroidery...a bit squint, here and there, wonderfully uncontained, unconstrained...wild and wonderful. And so are we all. All we have to do, is keep reminding ourselves...