holidays are so nice

So we went on holiday. A 3 day whirlwind tour of the antique stores and wineries of Tasmania. Weirdly enough, with lots of craft.

First antique store we stopped in, I found this:

I've never seen an old crochet hook. Loads of old needles, and loads of those hook-y things for latch rugs, but never an old crochet hook. So I bought it, and it was exactly the size of the one I was using to crochet the rug with, so I swapped over. The rug is getting huge, it's got about 6 balls of wool in it. I've got 3 more of each colour and then I'm hoping it's done. It takes so much wool!

In Hobart's funky arts and crafts region, I found these awesome needle felted owls in the window of a closed shop:I love the expression on their faces! Makes me want to start needle felting right away! But I'm already working on several projects for different exhibitions and theatre shows and I jsut can't pile on any more. But I SO wish I had time!

We also found this in a gallery:
Machine quilted artworks. I love the textures, and the range of colours!
At Port Arthur, there was an interactive museum and in it was a schoolroom. At one end were these:Apparently when an overseer of the young boys would fall asleep on duty it was not unusual for the urine bucket to be emptied over their heads. This was the modern day, genteel approach, you were encouraged to throw beanbags at these guys. Unfortutanly someone had nicked all the beanbags, so instead I took photos. They're filled with bean bag pellets and they have painted faces.


And lastly was this. A machine stitched Duck in a small folk museum in a tiny Dalesford like town. The whole thing is created by machine stitching. I was blown away. Imagine trying to stick the duck's body under your machine foot! Ok, well, it was probably stitched flat then assembled, but still it's pretty damn impressive.

There was also an amazing quilt in four huge panels done by the YARN collective, which was four different vistas in different seasons of the town. It was really beautiful.

These things were double the height of a tall man. I know, because there was a tall man standing next to it at one stage. The amount of work was mind boggling, and it's now there in the folk museum for generations to come. It's mainly silk!

The frustrating part was that we were there at the same time that an old trio of people were there, and although there were stern signs not to use FLASH photography, these guys happily flashed everything they wanted to photograph. The lights in the special theatre/veiwing room were bright enough that you could photograph without flash, but they kept doing it. Even going way close up to photograph individual things POP the flash would go. Now, firstly, you're jsut going to blow out the image with flash that close, secondly you dont need flash, the lighting is good enough and thirdly, you were asked a number of times before you entered, NOT TO USE FLASH, because it'll slowly fade and thus destroy the very thing you're Ohhing and Ahhing over.

People boggle the mind at times.

There was also much wine tasting (not so much for the driver, of course) and then wine buying, cheese tasting, buying and eating and in between, some lunches, dinners and breakfasts. And much coffee.

And can I just say that, as a vegetarian, going on holiday anywhere that's not Melbourne or Sydney kinda sucks in the food department. Room service on the second hotel had NOTHING without meat in it, and most of the restaurants and cafes we walked into (and then back out of) had one to none veggie dishes. We had a nice time, but it's nice to be home where the food is good, plentiful and actually able to be eaten.

Thus endth that rant.
For now.