caerula's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...but I know what I like It's one of those mornings when I hardly feel coherent enough to write, and have no motivation at all. I'm so tired of packing, and, in the words of an 8-year-old, "people shouldn't make promises they can't keep." We've been getting the runaround from our house people, who assured us they were working on the house and we could start moving this weekend and that having the movers come on Wednesday was no problem. On Friday, we discovered that the house, which has been sitting on the lot for 10 days, has not been worked on at all. Hasn't been touched, in fact -- it still has the wheels on from when it was trucked in. Our lease, which we've already extended for one month at a ridiculous amount of money, is up on the 22nd. We've told our sales guy over and over that we must be able to move by the 18th. He kept telling us it wasn't a problem, until Blue called rather irate on Friday and wanted to know why of the 7 houses brought in the same day as ours, all but two were completed, and ours was still sitting there in parts. He hemmed and hawed and didn't have a satisfactory answer. Blue called back yesterday and asked for the main office number, and sales guy wouldn't give it to him! I am really not happy. We'll probably have to cancel the movers, and hope they can squeeze us in early next week, and then we'll have a few hours to get everything else out and clean up and repair holes in the wall, instead of several days as we were hoping. And that's if they actually start working on it today and work their asses off for the entire week. And next Thurs., the 23rd, the Queen comes in from New York for the weekend; we're leaving to drive up to Stratford on Friday, coming back Sunday; YMB gets back from the Dementors on Monday, Q leaves on Tuesday and Wednesday we are leaving for the rest of the week on vacation. We get back Saturday, and Tuesday YMB starts school. So this week and early next week is really it for time to actually move. Unpacking, I'm no so concerned about, it's something we can do gradually. But some things are essential -- beds, tables, appliances, electricity, running water, a house that isn't sitting aroung in parts with plastic over the windows. It's really not too much to ask, is it? Why, oh why, does everything have to be a huge production? Why can't one thing in our lives go smoothly, just once? Saturday was awful. Packing much of the day, and after Blue left for work YMB started pulling the old "I'm bored" whine. He's not a huge help with packing, and his friends next door were gone, and he kept wanting me to think up things for him to do. I was exhausted from work all week and then coming home and packing every night, and I had no patience with that. I snapped at him that he was going to have to learn to entertain himself and that we weren't going to be there every second to do things with him, even if his grandparents were. Then I felt really bad, of course. The poor kid's dealing with just as much as we are, maybe more, and is trying to handle it as best we can. And it's not his fault he never learned to play alone very well; he's never really been given the chance to develop those skills, with Dementors at his beck and call every moment. But I was just so tired. Sunday was better. I gave up packing for the day and went with Mom and Kitty to the World Quilt and Textile Show in Lansing. The show itself wasn't that spectacular (not nearly as good as I was expecting) and I had no money to shop the vendors, but we have a good time anyway. We had ample opportunity to be critical of the quilts and the judges' choices, which earned us several dirty looks. By the time we left, around 4 pm, we were exhausted and hysterical with tiredness. We all get very giggly and silly when we get really tired. (This trait always enlivened family vacations when we were little; we once got kicked out of a Bob's Big Boy in, I think, Tennessee.) So anyway, I was expecting some really spectacular quilts, since this is one of the biggest shows in the country and people from all over the world enter their work. But unfortunately they've succumbed to the art quilt phenomenon, so there was lots of textile arts stuff, and things claiming to be quilts but which were oddly shaped, or had holes in them, or used non-textile materials. I recognize that art quilts are a valid form, but it's annoying when all the prizes go to those sorts of things and none of the traditional work, which is as if not more difficult and painstaking in my opinion, is recognized at all. Traditional quilters are looked on as "crafters," while art quilters are "artists." Guess who gets the grants and the cash prizes and their pieces in galleries? Not the crafters. Frankly, I don't care for most art quilts. Part of what I like about quilting is the traditional aspects, the feeling that I'm participating in something that has been handed down over the years, using patterns that my great-great-grandma would recognize. And it's telling, I think, that while all the judges' prizes went to art quilts, the Viewers choice award went to an amazing traditional quilt which was covered with hand applique and hand quilting. I do think art quilts should be recognized as a valid textile art form, I'm just uncomfortable with calling them "quilts," and I'm unhappy that they are receiving most of the attention on the quilt show circuit instead of a portion of it. Okay, end of rant. We did have a good time, Mom got lots of the fabric to start Minnie's wedding quilt, I did pick up a pattern book I'd been looking for for ages, and we went to dinner and laughed a lot, which I really needed. I just want to move into our house, damnit! P.S. It belatedly occured to me that my loyal legions of fans (hi guys) might not know what I mean by "art quilt." So I'll give you a couple of examples, purely subjective in nature of course. This, or even these, although not necessarily something I would hang on my wall, are what art quilts are meant to be should be. Stretching the boundaries of the medium, using the piecing and sewing techniques that make an object a quilt, in new and exciting and beautiful ways. This, on the other hand, while nifty, has nothing to do with quilting for me. She uses canvas, print transfers, horsehair, ribbons, sequins and beads to get her effects. I don't somehow see that as quilting. Fiber art, yes. Quilting, not so much. And most of the quilts we saw yesterday weren't as interesting to look at as that. 8:38 a.m. - 2001-08-13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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