The Jumpers and Jazz festival has been another fantastic one for me. This year tree jumper installation day kicked off very, very early. In fact morning television early. The Today Show arranged for live weather crosses with weather correspondent Natalia Cooper in chilly downtown Warwick. My bestie Helen and I were among the brave group of folks to arrive ‘on set’ before 6 am. It was a beautiful time to be up and it also allowed us to get a car park right next to our respective trees. Most convenient. We gathered around behind the action of the first cross. Once the cut was called it was time to commence Operation Installation. My tree was known as “Tree 64” this year. There is a building in place of the vacant site now. I think in all It took me 3 or so hours to stitch my tree jumper “Sherbert” onto my tree. I really enjoy how that process unfolds. I have an idea in my head when I start as to how it might look. Then it changes to how I imagine it might look as I see it flat on the floor in my home. As it starts to be stitched on those images changed quite dramatically for me this year. It ended up looking very different to and happily even better than I thought it would.
The festival introduced a new section to the competition in 2017: the Hall ofFame Award. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the awards ceremony this year. Tara and Fast Eddie from Better Homes and Gardens were on hand to make the announcements. I am bloody proud to say that I was named as the inaugural inductee into the Jumpers and Jazz Hall of Fame!! The Warwick Daily News wrote an article about me Bright star in hall of fame. And there’s also a very quick glimpse of Sherbert in the trailer for the episode that Better Homes and Gardens crew filmed over 3 days. I wish the full episode was still available, but it appears to have expired from the Plus7 site. The show really showed how beautiful, fun, and exciting the Jumpers and Jazz in July festival is. I felt very proud to be a part of such wonder.
I included a light element to my tree jumper again this year. I stayed in town on installation day night so I was able to head down the street to see the lights in effect. It was pretty darn cool, if not quite difficult to capture.