Jane Callender comes to Kuwait

In January Jane Callender flew in to give us a talk about and run a workshop in her indigo dyeing and shibori work. WOW!! no WOW already!! this was fantastic. If you ever see one of her talks or workshops advertised, go. and if you run a group looking for a speaker or workshop leader, she is your lady.

She flew in on the BA red eye, so I took her home to sleep the morning away, and then vaguely refreshed, we jumped in the car and went out on a look/see and photography trip. In the end, we only drove up the Arabian Gulf Road for about 10 miles, but it took us over 2 hours, because she kept needing to stop and take pictures. Normally it takes 20 minutes, - 30 tops depending on how bad the traffic is.

The following day we went to Sadu House to put up her display for her talk. She had brought with her several pieces of her work, and they looked fabulous hung on the racking around the central courtyard. Then on to the home of Paramjeet Bawa, who had volunteered her basement to hold the workshop in to prepare the indigo vats. Poor Cally almost had heart failure when she arrived. all the paving around the house, the stairs down to, and the floor in the basement are all white marble tiles. Indigo, obviously, is blue, and stains. There were going to be 20 people dipping and dyeing over the next 2 days - it was not going to be pretty!



this large piece was facing everyone diagonally across the courtyard as they came in, it is called Kaleidoscope, and 150cm square.

The rest are in no particular order, but just give a flavour of her work.











flushed with the success of the evening, we went home and got everything ready for the workshop the next day.
still convinced that she would be facing hideous bills for replacing acres of marble irevocably dyed blue, Cally still managed to put a brave face on and get things going. A run through of different techniques and we were off to make a shibori sampler. The silence was a testament to the level of concentration - I mean, when have you ever known 20 women in the same room, who all know each other pretty well, be quiet? For ages? Eventually, a few nimble fingered souls had stitched and gathered and were ready to dip their monstrous creations. 4 dips of a minute with 20 minutes in between. Did we have that much patience? And each time that magical moment when the cloth comes out of the vat coloured green and turns blue in front of your eyes. I love it.

2 days of this, which was just heaven, we stitched, we wrapped, we scrunched, we bound, and my, the work the ladies produced. It will be interesting to see if any of them use any of their creations in quilts or finished pieces for our exhibition in May.

Cally ended up staying with me for a week. I hope she went home with a good flavour of living in Kuwait - I tried to give her a sample of lots of things, and we were both exhausted by the end of the week. She took home a gazillion photos, and several pounds of excess baggage which we managed to get through ok because the plane was not full, phew! We took her to the fabric souk - twice, the heritage souk for dinner, for a pedicure at a nailbar in a shopping centre where we had valet parking, to the Friday market, to a concert by a local singing group, The Ahmadi singers, and took photos everywhere. I know that it was a fabulous week for me, and for the KTAA, and the ladies are still talking about the workshop and how fantastic it was. I got lots of brownie points for organising that. So I repeat, if you get the chance to listen to her or go to her workshop, you will not regret taking it. Promise.

KTAA first meeting

We finally got the 2007/08 season underway with our first meeting on Tuesday night. It was held at Sadu House, and we had about 50-60 people turn up, plus another 45 or so from another group who were meeting on the same night and came along to see what we were all about. Once I had stopped feeling ill with worry, I really enjoyed myself.

We had plenty of time first for people to look around Sadu house, and for some it was their first visit, and to renew their membership, and then I had to do my bit and welcome everyone. I don't think I managed to insult anyone - haven't been told of any complete cock ups anyway, so fingers crossed I got away with it! Sheika Altaf then did a small talk about how she came to be involved with the start of the KTAA in 1994, when just 6 people got together because they were interested in weaving..... something about little acorns springs to mind here. Once we had got all that out of the way, we got onto the interesting stuff and had a show and tell. I started the ball rolling by showing the little beaded doll brooches I'd got at the quilt festival in Birmingham made by the South African children whose parent(s) had died from Aids. We had jackets from south China, a throw from Peru, a hand embroidered table cloth, a mirror cover from Uzbekistan, a drape to cover bed linen also from Uzbekistan, both very old pieces, a rug from Morocco, a couple of quilts, and a painted wall hanging from India. I'm sure there were more, but my mind has gone blank - I don't think there were any cuddly toys or microwaves! And crawling all over the place, were the ubiquitous press photographers that come to all manner of events in kuwait. every time I looked up there was another telephoto lense up my left nostril! So no surprises for guessing that a couple of days later we were in the paper. And again today. Hey ho, no peace for the wicked!!
Just in case Sian is reading this, I have been slowly progressing with some course work, doing some weaving samples, and rubbings from them, and about to start playing with colour studies. that should get me off the hook for a couple of minutes anyway! I actually spent this afternoon making a couple of pieces of quilting. Our quilt group here has gone back to basics as we have a lot of new members, and we have been given a Kaleidoscope pattern to make up.

I also had a go at the disappearing nine patch as demonstrated by Helen on her blog a couple of months ago.
It is so much fun to do, and looks far more complicated than it is, which is always good value.

tomorrow is our Monday equivalent, so back to work, and for me that is a trip to the fabric souk with some new members tomorrow morning, and then out to the British Business Forum introduction to Kuwait evening at the Hilton resort. should be fun.