Consumerism at it's most blatant

I'm just home having spent two days at the Melbourne's Reed Gift Fair. Apart from a brief break for the Thanksgiving Service for the life of my dear uncle Ron, Dad's Brother.

Considering how much space, energy, resources, money is spent on this event - not just in Victoria - but around the country, I'm flabbergasted at what and how much people spend money on 'things'.

Yes, I was there, in my capacity as a retailer and therefore as a cog in the wheel of all this, I was contributing in some way to this spendfest. However, it was just the sheer quantity and 'stuff and nonsense' that I'm reeling from. When you consider the size of "Jeff's Shed" and indeed the Melbourne Showgrounds and know that these were all filled to capacity, you can get what I'm talking about. The logistics must have been mind boggling. All praise to the organisers, it was reasonably pain free - let me rephrase that, trouble free (my feet objected at that last comment) I am just reeling at the prospects of having spent more than I'd budgeted on and hope that my customers will think my taste in goodies worth spending their hard earned dollars on for their loved ones for Christmas or whatever. I'd like to add here that I've concentrated on purchasing items that are fair trade wherever possible.

On a lighter note. I've been playing with felting these last few weeks since attending a workshop at the Craft and Quilt fair in Melbourne recently. I made a scarf at the workshop, which has been worn very frequently since being made, I had such fun and the result was very pleasing to me anyway. Subsequently have had a play with my next door neighbour and talented silk artist Jan Wishart and we've made some fun pieces together. Next week a group of us within the village of Loch are all going to gather at the lovely Royal Hotel Loch and have a play day making some samples and more scarves of our own using the technique I recently learned. This is not a professional workshop, just a sharing of information and fun with friends. We'll share this and some scrummy soup with Sybil Leris and hopefully turn out some wearable pieces of art at the end of the day. Hopefully you will see some special results from the day in the next post. a snapshot close-up of my scarf

example of wool and silk on silk fabric

example of felt on Muslin

Till next time.