Yesterday we visited the University buildings in Salamanca. It is one of the oldest universities in Spain. It must have been tough as a student in those days (16C) - you sat on a rough wooden beam and had a rough plank in front of you to rest your books on. There are some arabic influences in the architecture, as visible in this mudejar ceiling in a vestibule. Salamanca is on the northern border of the area conquered by the arabs.
Last night I bullied the photographer into going back to this shop window to take pictures of these magnificant hand embroidered shawls. (They look much better when illuminated in the shop window at night.) These are the traditional shawls that are worn on high days and holidays by the Spanish ladies. I hate to think how many hours of work went into each of these shawls.
This blue shawl is my favourite. The colour contrast and the subtle use of cream through brown in the embroidery are outstanding. Notice the long fringe too, always a part of the shawl.
You can also see a selection of the fans that are de rigeur when out at the fiestas. You see Spanish ladies using fans in their normal everyday lives here. But the very special ones only come out at fiesta time.
In this next picture of a beige shawl you can see a corner of a lace mantilla in the bottom right hand corner. Mantillas are the traditional head covering in church. You always see Queen Sofia wearing a mantilla in church on state occasions, regardless of what else she may have on, traditional or modern.
We are at the end of our first week at Salamanca learning Spanish. As it’s the weekend we’ve been allowed out to play 
We stopped by at the Casa de las Conchas to take some photos. These bits of weaving caught my eye, so had to be recorded with the camera.
I’ve not been doing any sewing since I finished the cushion cover. Instead I’ve been reading up on the theory of design. My first introduction to it was on Jim Shaw’s website. He has an online series of lessons on 2D design, which are well worth reading.
My latest acquisition on the design front is a book by Steven Aimone:
I can highly recommend this book. It has lots of colour photos used to illustrate the points being covered in each chapter. The examples are taken from many different mediums, which in my eyes makes it a more interesting and informative book than one that is aimed at a particular craft. It also has a number of different exercises throughout. And this time I might even be inspired to do some of them. I’m not usually a doer, more of a reader and then jump right in. But this time I feel I might learn something from them. We’ll see.
I’ve not been doing any quilting or dyeing this weekend. I did cut down an old pillow to make a new inside for my Ulu Fruit cushion but that’s all the creative stuff I’ve been up to.
Instead I’ve been doing an exercise from the book “The Visual Dance” by Joen Wolfrom.
I discovered the book in the description of a course on QU that I may take next year. After browsing the reviews on Amazon I decided to order it. Although Joen uses a rather unusual colour wheel in her chapter on colour (the only references in Google refer back to her book) the advice on colour and the other chapters make interesting reading. The book also contains lots of colour photos of a wide selection of quilts by various artists.
The exercise I am doing - I’ve not finished yet - is aimed at helping you discover your own style. The idea is to flip through books and magazines with photos of quilts and without much inner debate, order them into categories from “love” to “hate”. Then after a space of time you go back at look again at your choices and analyse what it is about each quilt that made you place it in its category. From the notes on each quilt you can summarize to give yourself a good idea as to your intuitive personal style. Joen’s advice is to spend your time making quilts you like. Sounds like good advice to me.
Although there were no big surprises, it did help to harden up my instincts so far. I’m not a pictorial quilter. I like geometrical shapes such as in most traditional quilt blocks. Apart from gaining more insights into your own style the exercise helps you define your personal characteristics of a stunning quilt over a good quilt.
