We’re all set up in a nice rural (semi; this is New York state after all) campground not far from Schenectady NY in a little town called Howe’s Cave, or Old Central Bridge, or Carlisle, depending on whether you ask Google Maps, or the campground’s website, or the GPS in my MIL’s car.  The site is grass; the campground is close to the freeway so there’s some road noise, but much less than we had at Harrisburg East campground last week.

We’re back out in our fiver, settled into a pleasant wooded campground right next to the highway in Harrisburg, PA.  I was a little nervous setting out and setting up (what if we forget something!)  The smooth routines of the spring and summer were noticeably rusty, but eventually we got all settled in a site that is unlevel enough front to back that the trailer is so low on the front legs it looks like it’s kneeling.  We’re using all the chocks, that’s for sure.  We’ve come out early for the Hershey RV Show, America’s Largest, say the promoters (there are three shows that claim the title, but who’s counting.) This week J will have to go back to near-Philly for a day or two to finish up with a customer.  I’ll spend that time putting stuff away in the trailer; when we ‘packed’, we just stacked boxes and bags on every available surface.  It’s surprising how much stuff moves in and out of the camper as we do.  One of the things that I want to look at is stemming that tide, reducing the ebb and flow of things that see more use in the fifthwheel than in the house.

We’ll be out for three weeks this time: this first week will be in Harrisburg/Hershey, going to the RV show and relaxing.  My MIL will join us this coming weekend, we’ll all go see the show with some of J’s coworkers who are interested in RVing, and then on Sunday we’ll head to upstate New York near Cooperstown for a week.  MIL’s really gung-ho to see the Baseball Hall of Fame, so we’ll do that and other museums in the area, then head over to the Hudson Valley to tour Hyde Park and its environs.  If all goes to plan we’ll be back in PA at the beginning of October.

I’m sitting here working on the last little bit of my Hawaiian appliqué quilt, and thinking over the gorgeous quilts I saw at Paducah, and the class I took there which mostly involved using inks to color fabric to get the precise look you want.  I was disappointed in the class; in general, I find I don’t like that sort of technique.  One of the winning quilts at the show was done that way -- it was quilted whole cloth: one piece of fabric which had been quilted and then the quilting motifs were colored in.  It was beautiful, but when I got up close and saw how it had been done I walked away thinking less of the quilt.

As I sat and stitched and pondered, I wondered why I think of those sorts of techniques (painting on fabric) as cheats.  Why am I such a traditionalist?  It struck me suddenly: it’s about the frame of the art.  What defines the art?  This is clearest to me in poetry.  The form of a haiku is 17 ‘on’ (corresponding loosely to English syllables) in a 5-7-5 pattern.  If the poem uses 20 ‘on’ because it’s easier to get the effect the poet is looking for, well, it might be pretty but it’s not a haiku, not anymore.  Sonnets can use any words they want, but if they don’t have a frame of 14 lines and regular meter, they’re not sonnets anymore.  Quilting is about making art with fabric and thread.  The challenge, to me, is making the art I want to create within the framework of using fabric and thread to get that effect.  If I have to resort to paint, that’s a failure of craft; that’s taking the easy way out.

(This hasn’t stopped me from taking a class in using oil pastel sticks to shade fabric for an appliqué block.  I enjoyed said class immensely; apparently a little cheating is ok. *grin*)
 

It’s been a quiet couple of weeks.  After seeing the redwoods, we moved to gold rush country; Sonora, CA, in a fairgrounds campground for a couple of days.  Still no aircard service, though our phones worked fine and we found an internet café so J could work.  We drove the area and toured the local museum; we went to Angels Camp, home of the annual frog jumping contest -- Calaveras Co, if that rings any bells.. ;)  The record distances, immortalized with bronze plaques in the sidewalk (name of frog, year, distance) were startling: 20 feet, 22 feet, 24 feet.  I asked at the info center if they allowed teeny jet packs; the lady behind the counter was Not Amused, but did deign to explain that the winning distances were for three consecutive jumps.