For many years as a child, my cousins and I would eagerly await our annual visit to the Rocky Show with our Aunt.
Always one to spoil her nieces and nephews, Aunty Mars filled our hearts with joy, our bellies with food and our arms with show bags.
The annual Show in any town is a community event designed to bring family fun to a region while enabling an event with something in mind for everyone.
People come together to share their created items, baked goods, talent, livestock and to have fun.
While living in Longreach, the Show was a very different experience.
Much smaller, far more agriculturally focused, and it was the opportunity for the entire community to come together.
Rodeos, race days and shows were where everything happened.
The Yeppoon Show and The Caves Show remind me much of the Longreach Show.
Isn’t it remarkable when something that happens once a year brings back so many happy memories?
When we lived in Brisbane, the Ekka was our Show, and as most of us either know or have experienced, the Ekka is huge.
Far bigger than any country town Show, but with the same atmosphere, just on a larger scale.
After my Grandmother, Glenda Ross, taught me to sew when I returned to Rockhampton in 2010, one of the skills she shared was quilting.
A quilt is a magnificent masterpiece of colours and patterns.
When you look at a quilt, you see something different each time.
How the colours connect, and how the visual art moves across the space.
Second to the Ferris Wheel, one of my favourite things to do at the Show is to look at the quilts which have been created and entered.
The detail and meticulous alignment of the fabric is stunning.
When I look at quilts or sew a quilt, I’m reminded of my Grandmother, and it feels like she is speaking to me again, sharing her wisdom and guidance on achieving the perfect quarter-inch seam.
In 2020 when the world slowed down, and we were confined to our homes, I began one of Grandma’s jelly roll quilts that she’d left behind after she passed away.
I started piecing it together while, at the same time, my creative outlet shifted towards writing.
This meant I put the quilt aside, and it sat waiting for me for three years.
I took a week off work in May of this year and made no plans.
It was at this moment that I unexpectedly began to finish the quilt.
As someone who knows what they love and what they don’t, it brings me no shame to share that I outsource the process of combining wadding, backing and binding.
The part I love is the top of the quilt, and I take great joy in allowing someone with a quilting machine to put the layers together and stitch a beautiful pattern on top.
I did consider entering my quilt in the Show this year but, in the end, decided not to.
I chose this because I wasn’t sure if I’d have my quilt back in time or if it was even allowed to be finished by someone other than me, and to be honest, it isn’t likely to win any awards.
Some of my joins are off, and it’s certainly not perfect, but neither am I, and that’s ok too.
“When you strive for perfection, you compare different versions of what could be instead of being present with what is.
Perfectionism is an attempt to inhabit an imaginary world in order to avoid experiencing the world in which you live.” – Gary Zukav.
The imperfect quilt and the journey and inspiration it’s taken to finish it is the stuff memories are made of.
This quilt has a story, and when it is returned to me complete, its story will continue because of who I’m giving it to and why.
It’ll then continue paving a story with its new home.
Like at the Show, when I see happy children with their families, I remember my childhood and my blessings.
And like at the Show, when I admire the gorgeous creations and quilts, I’ll wonder how many have been created with love and with a story.
I’ll imagine the relationship between the teacher and the creator, and I’ll hope it’s a memorable and happy one.
May you find your happy memories in the small moments which make up this adventurous journey we call life.
