Road works, Road cones and a Triangle Quilt

This quilt has been fermenting in my mind for a while, 

(in fact I brought some fabric but used it for the This too will Pass Quilt)

and when I saw the neon fabric I knew it would be perfect for this quilt.

I also saw the triangle quilt along and the two things came together.

Here's what I have in mind.

There's some lovely posters appearing around Christchurch.

This one is my favourite. It's hard to not to feel overwhelmed in Christchurch.

I know some folks think everything is fine here now,

and I know good things are happening,

but sometimes it just gets to you.

There are good things happening, I'm not denying that.

But its so slow. So slow. 

The empty sections and the constant demolition mock the small pockets of progress.

Sometimes I'm ok. But sometimes I'm over it.

We run a small family painting company. It's hard work.

Everyone imagines that we are doing fantastically.

We aren't. Getting work from certain unnamed giant corporations

is like getting blood from the proverbial stone.

Day after day they grind you down with their demands and general rudeness

and to top it off they don't give you enough work to survive.

Picture from before

One of the things that are particularly difficult now

is the enormous amount of road works. 

Whole roads are closed for months at a time, and it constantly changes,

where you could drive yesterday, you can't drive today.

Just to give you an idea, here's a screen shot of the Transport for Christchurch website

showing road works and road closures. It's crazy.

So anyway back to the quilt,

I've decided to make a triangle quilt in neon (road cone) colours

and embroider road works words on some of the solid blocks.

Perhaps in fluro thread (every second person in Christchurch wears fluro)

I'll put things like "detour" "site access" "detour"

and all the other things that are on signs everywhere we try and go.

Maybe in 20 years time this will be a distant memory and my grandchildren

will ask me about this quilt and I'll tell them about how all the drains in Christchurch

had to be rebuilt after the earthquakes and how we could hardly move

for road cones and road works.

But in the meantime I'm going to channel my frustration and sadness

into making sense of it in my own way, by making the brightest quilt ever!