Interesting time

So, my friend wrote an awsome bit of writing about why copying is not ok in the current 'making' market place, and posted it to the Etsy forum...on my recomendation. Little did I know she would be bullied right off the page! If only my post got published at the end...The thread was closed. Basically it was a bun fight right there on screen!
So many people not getting the point...so threatened and hostile . I think what was written as comment by and large was so disgraceful, and as 'making' people we should be concerned with the greater and greater amount of samey-ness that is out there. Even if our product is as unique as we can make it. Shoddy and repetitive items do bring us all down...especially if they are less and less expensive.
One person wrote that they are finding it difficult to tell the difference between handmade and manufacted items...I do too. I get an icky feeling in a couple of shops where there is so much product, all the same and all hande made...apparently....but what about all that laser cut stuff...what's with that? Is that handmade?.....mmmmm ponderings will continue...by the way, I couldn't help myself. LOOK HERE
What was started in the same vain, has attacted so many copiers!!! It's hilarious. To my dear friend...They are all hopeless cases.

The week ends...I wonder whether being in a semi isolated situation like I'm in, can make you more opinionated and beligerant? I've been trying to be all nice and civilised up until a few posts ago. I think I'm just a bit fed up with having to deal with folk who are not my folk...just because you have kids, doesn't automatically make you compatible. I did seem to make friends a bit with a girl from the market, and you wouldn't believe, she basically told me what she was doing now with her 'making' was pretty much my idea that I went to the market with...painted crockery...so, um, I'm not the person she should be telling, because now I think she's pretty thick. First for telling me, and second for not thinking up her own thing....gawd

Hovering parenting......

Just a little observation that's getting on my nerves.

Could all the hovering mums that do not give their kids any space or freedom in the playground all take about ten steps back!

In my opinion, kids, lets say, 3 year olds, could all do with the freedom play how they like. As a mum, I don't always like what I see or hear coming out of my childs mouth, or other kids directed towards my child. But that is how life is! Children work things out for themselves if they're given half a chance. If you're always standing there censoring what comes out of your kids mouth, and shielding them from other childrens' comments and whatever, you're not doing them any favours.  I'm not saying kids should be left in a 'Lord of the flies' situation.

What I'm really mad about is the two situations I was confronted by this last week. The first one was in Ikea....In the kids section, E was playing with the toys, I was just behind a shelf looking at stuff, when I came back to see what she was doing I hear from  a mother "that's not a very nice way to play". Well, fair enough. I don't know what she was doing. I figured Else didn't   want to share what she was playing with...I don't know. So I swooped in and saw the other little girl was a about to cry, and insisted that E said she was sorry, and maybe it would be better if she just let the girl play. ALL I COULD DO! Well, the look on the other mother was absolutely icicles, I was mortified!! Nothing would have put this right. I felt like this mother was just thinking I'm a disgrace because I wasn't standing in my little girls shadow, I won't do it. She doesn't need me right behind her every second. The other time was at Ocean grove play ground, great fun but, all the mothers were hovering, I don't. I let find her own way, make her own friends and do her own imagining with out me even in earshot. I of course can see her. Again, some little incident. Taking turns or something, and mothers are looking at me to intervene. So dutifully, I do, but still it's not right. So, what do all these mothers want from me? Do I have to stand there just like they do, Is that the main part of parenting? My kids are at my side every waking hour, I figure they are entitled to want to run free, ahhhhh

Face book.....what is it doing to me??

I've decided that facebook is no good for me any more. Since i've come into contact with people from school and 10 or more years ago, I've gone all weird in the head about it, never have I been so regretful of stupid stuff that I had no perspective of....I was a kid, yet here I am as a full blown adult lamenting decisions I made all that time ago. ITS NOT HEALTHY!!! Past is past. I'm in a situation with my life that I'm quite happy in, I can just imagine the wrecking of lives that must be happening everywhere because of facebook. People being sucked into a vortex of school days or whatever, it's gone....whatever you think about it all, it's not real.

So, I'm sculking away from Facebook, quietly...not telling. 

news

So, first things first. Yes, I am having another baby. And it will be a boy from all acounts...I have seen it on the ultra sound, and it all seemed clear to me that it is a little boy. We are VERY pleased to be adding to our little family. We love having one, so two should be really interesting, especially being a boy. Lucky for us. Elsie will be 2 in about a week. She is very busy, running and talking her head off.

And on other fronts, as you may have read on a previous post, a friend of mine passed away in August. That has been really sad for me. When you have a little one running around, it's hard to stay in a sad mood for very long, because you don't want to confuse or scare them, so often when I'm on my own or at night when I'm trying to get to sleep, I just get this wave of sadness. I get surprised at myself, I didn't realise how much I would miss Kate, until now. I expect I just thought she would be around, like my own Mum. When I found out she was ill, I just thought that there would be time. Selfishly I thought that she might be ill for a long time, but that was not the case. And really, I expect that was a blessing. Hilary and I were asked to 'finish' off a tapestry left on the loom at Kate's place last week, what a privilage, and how strange.

Allan's walk projct. Test Match...Tag Team Tapestry.

This lay-out is a bit strange....
This is the result of about 7 days work that Hilary Green and myself did while participating in the Test Match Programme at Allan's Walk Artist run studio in Bendigo.
We started to put the loom together on the Wednesday night, after dinner. We had the intention to warp it up on that day aswell but it just got too late and also Hil thought she had it, but it had fallen out of her bag on the way in.

So on the Thursday we warped up and put in the floor and bed...red of course. I like red. Hil always uses red for the bed, it always looks snappy. By the end of Thursday we had made good progress.
Although it is amazing that even though I hadn't done any weaving in months, I still had as sore a shoulder as if I had been weaving full time at the VTW...
Friday was more weaving, we felt pressure to get quite a lot done because we had to give a studio talk on the Saturday afternoon.
We had loads of visitors, and got in the local paper. The Bendigo Advertiser. Someone heard the project talked about on the country ABC radio National, plus Hil was interviewed on the local radio Station.
The talk was good, except we only got about 6 people to come. My friend Jen + her friend came all the way up from Melbourne, which really was great. Plus there was a few people who had been in the previous days. We were interviewed buy a girl called Ulanda, who had great hair. She is writing an essay about the whole project, not just us.
On Monday Kate and Brian Derum came to visit us, which was fantastic. We went out for lunch and I discovered a great toy shop called Mr Goodtimes...it was good times.
Else was sooo good, firstly she had my Mum looking after her then Pete came up to look after her for the rest of the time...
In the actual weaving, (which is what we were there for) we incorporated a few elements of what interests both Hil and I.
Firstly we started with a 'ground' of rock rubbings that Hil had made at a place called One tree Hill, we wove this for a while and then though that it may get a bit busy, plus I think we were looking forward to incorporating more 'objects ' into the work. So, we left that idea, and started to invert the tones, like a negative. Then eventually turning it to black. Which we thought looked pretty great. Especially when some of the objects, like my fern frond came in, then the start of the girl.
We didn't get much more done than that.
We didn't really have the right kind of chairs to weave much higher than we did. As it is, my shoulder is still weak, and sore...

Then what happened?
Well, Hil and I put the tapestry on to two rolls and took it off the loom and rolled it up, to weave it another day. We are thinking about entering it into a few exhibitions when it is finished.

I think I've worked out how to do links....