we will be moving...

...in the summer, not sure whether July or August, as there is still some horse trading going on over it, but anyway, we will be going to the States. My husband will be working at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, and we will be living in St Robert. We are all looking forward to it very much, and my family in Florida are over the moon that I will be on the same continent as them for the first time in 25 years. So, any stitchers in MO, whether embroidery or quilting, please get in touch. I guess I will have to change the blog name, but not today.

still here...

I had no idea that it was so long ago that I last blogged. I mean I knew it was a while, but 5 months. that is shocking.

So what have I been up to in that time? Hopefully you will believe that I have been busy, there has to be something to show for all this time, right?

KTAA has monopolised a large chunk of my time. As president, I am involved in quite a bit of PR type work for the group, helping to put the name out there. I also have the day to day type admin of the group to coordinate,but I have a wonderful committee who work very hard so that I can have a great organisation to do the PR for.

We have continued to hold our monthly meetings. December was all about Feed sack quilts. One of our members, C, has a collection of these little beauties, and put together a talk about them. Sadly she ended up travelling, so I had to present it for her. It is a fascinating story, and so good that America woke up to the importance of these items in their quilting history. One of the best aspects of this was to discover that C has not only been collecting the sacks, but is making quilts with them. she doesn't believe in just building up a stash and doing nothing with them. brilliant.

January's meeting was a talk about African Textiles from John Gillow. We flew him out from the UK, complete with a large supply of samples, and he talked us on a guided tour of Africa for a couple of hours. He was also able to meet Sheika Altaf at Sadu House again. he visited Kuwait a few years ago and assisted with a book and the permanent display at Sadu House.
February saw us holding a Kuwait themed evening. In this month the Kuwaitis celebrate both their National Day and Liberation Day, so we thought it appropriate to invite Ali Al Sulaiman, one of only 2 remaining traditional bisht makers in Kuwait to come to talk to us about his work. We were lucky also to secure the services of Dr Ali Al Najadah to act as translator and to help fill in any gaps for us. A bisht is a long garment worn by men over their dishdashas for prestige and on special occasions. If you have ever seen a picture of the Emir of Kuwait in the papers or on TV, he always wears a bisht, usually black with gold embroider around the neck. They can range from the lightest open weave to heavier warmer weaves, and are therefore able to be worn all year. The gold embroidery (zari) is worked to order by a team of male embroiderers. When finished, the embroidery is pounded with a heavy metal rod over a padded base to flatten the threads and to burnish them.
March gave us the opportunity to hear about the career of Dr Keireine Canavan, Programme Director at Cardiff School of Art and Design at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. We are lucky that in this instance we didn't have to fly her over as her family are here anyway and she was visiting them.
And then this month, last night actually, we arranged a private viewing for the KTAA of an exhibition of Costumes from the Arab world. this exhibition was organised by the Tareq Rajab museum in Kuwait. All the costumes, about 100, came from the Rajab's private collection, which holds about 5,000 items, and is the largest private collection of Arab costume in the world. The most difficult part of organising the exhibition was choosing what to display. The real treat of the evening was that for us, they removed the barrier, gave us white gloves and we were allowed to handle the clothing. We had a brilliant evening, being able to handle the dresses and see the embroidery up close has added a huge amount to our knowledge, and we are aware of just how huge and amazing a privilege this was.

So that is a brief up to now for the KTAA. Next up is our end of year exhibition, followed swiftly by our agm and final meeting of the year. this one I can really relax on, as it will be show and tell from the group of our ladies who recently visited South Africa. KTAA organises overseas textile based trips every year, and this time they travelled around the Drakensburg mountains and Johannesburg. I am green with envy as I was unable to go with them and they all had a brilliant time. so I am busy with organising the exhibition and the agm and finishing up work to enter for the exhibition.

I spent yesterday with Zain, a telecommunications company in the middle east. they were celebrating Earth day, and held a photo competition and asked KTAA to hold a mini exhibition of re-usable carrier bags. The organiser had visited UK last summer just when Anya Hindmarsh was launching the 'I'm not a plastic bag' campaign, and decided it was something to bring to Kuwait. I challenged members to make re-usable bags out of recycled materials. We had some great entries. To my surprise, I was invited to help cut the ribbon to open the photo exhibition - now that's a first!

Aside from that, my C&G tutor, Sian, is possibly relieved that I have breathed new life into my coursework efforts. this is largely down to a fellow student who lives in Australia. We have decided to try and give each other an electronic kick up the backside, and help each other work through the assignments. I think we can do it, but just at the moment, I am a little busy with finishing work off - see above.

Kuwait has been lovely for the past few weeks in amongst the dust storms. Not too warm, not too humid. flowers all in bloom. We did have a fairly dramatic storm a week or so ago. At first it seemed like a standard dust storm, but then it intensified, and was followed in by hail and mini tornadoes. Apparantly most unusual, but I've seen one photo of hail stones 9 inches deep around a car. Kuwait doesn't do hail. some of our friends were unfortunately out in the desert when the storm hit. they had a couple of car windows broken, and the back and one side of the car taken down to bare metal. not good.

As and when I get photos in for all of this I will add them, and will try to do better at posting more regularly, yes I will!!!

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.

KTAA annual exhibition

well it's taken me ages to find the time to sit down and write about the show, but being president has meant that I've been just a little busy. And of course I've been back to England in the meantime. I have also had a new camera to sort out, and dh bought a new computer the other day, which is great because I can put the camera stuff on it, but has meant ages spent moving files from old computer to new computer, yadda, yadda.....

The quilt group meeting on the Monday before the show was the big reveal of everyone's work, which was a great morning, but left us reeling from sensory overload. Finally got home just in time to meet my daughter off the school bus, and crashed. Tuesday was hanging day. there were about 10 of us, split into the two halls, and for the most part we all worked together pretty well. The lady in charge made us redo something a couple of times, and one whole wall of mini quilts was moved somewhere completely different, but there was no actual bloodshed. I had organised lunch for anyone who wanted it, and various other ladies had brought plates of goodies in too, but sheez, trying to get folks to stop work and eat was a nightmare. Next year, I might buy a siren!! The judges arrived from 5pm onwards and I left them to the care of the outgoing president.

Our judges were Australian quilt artist Jenny Bowker, who flew in from Cairo where she currently lives, Canadian quilt artist Linda Hancock who has been living in Kuwait for several years but who is returning to her home in Canada, and Noelle Aleyagut, a medical illustrator and artist who lives here in Kuwait. Somehow they had managed the almost impossible task of selecting various winners in each of the categories, and various highly commended. Each judge had their own judge's choice rosette to award, and then finally, there was a best in show.

On Wednesday a friend and I spent the day making canapes for the opening. she had a lady staying with her who is going to be moving out here in January, and who was just here for a look/see. So obviously she was press ganged into working too.

The evening was a great success. probably about 100+ people came, all the local press was represented, a couple of ambassadors and their wives, unfortunately not Sheika Altaf as her travel plans changed, a host of members, some of their husbands, and the rest must have been rent a mob. But what a fabulous evening. Prizes were awarded, with more than a few surprises along the way. This year our members seem to have been keen to take on the challenge of art quilting, and we had a fair mixture of both traditional quilts and art quilts displayed in the exhibition. I think though it came as a surprise to some that the best in show went to a traditional sampler quilt.

Throughout the exhibition, Jenny Bowker ran 2 one and half day workshops, which must have exhausted her, but were thoroughly enjoyed by the students. We looked at designs from nature and working in tiled patterns, and I'm looking forward to seeing if anybody is brave enough to develop their designs further into a quilt.

If I can work out how, I will put some photos up, but for now I intend to finish this and post it as it is embarrassingly late.
hooray, here we are. this one in the middle of course had to the first one, because it is my entry in the Faces of Arabia section, and is my first ever solo quilt. It will be on display in the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in August, along with all the other amazingly beautiful quilts in this category and a couple of others, Stars, and Self Portraits.






















This beautiful blue and white sampler won the best in show, and the Shades of Autumn was the visitors choice. Both are by Penny Armitage.
In no particular order, here are some of the other quilts from the show.

Sanded in!

Well, admit it, it makes a change from snowed in! Kuwait, and quite a lot of the gulf region, has been having a sandstorm for the past 3 days. it is showing signs of clearing, but I remain unconvinced, as its done that once before and come back worse. it's not like a blizzard, with it blowing a gale in your face, but it just sort of hangs in the air. visiblity is not very far at all, sometimes down to feet rather than yards (or even metres!), and breathing becomes interesting! the sand is so fine, that even staying indoors is no guarantee that you will avoid it, as it comes in round the doors and windows, and through the ac vents, and everything is coated in a fine layer of the stuff - a bit like a middle eastern version of Miss Haversham's wedding feast!!!
One advantage of the sand storm has been not feeling guilty about staying in and sewing. The kuwait textile arts association is having their year end exhibition at the end of this month, and while I wasn't too fussed about having anything in it, now that I am to be their next president I felt guilty about my apathy, and decided I needed to get something done. So I have been slaving over a hot sewing machine, and made a self portrait, 18"x18", and a 30"x45" quilted wall hanging, and a bag, and will finish the secret garden piece that I made a few weeks ago for the Textile Challenges group monthly challenge, and about to start a pair of fairy shoes, and maybe a bracelet, if I have the time after I have put hanging sleeves and labels on the backs of all the quilts. I particularly wanted to do some non-quilted pieces, as I'd done the talk on my embroidery, and have had great fun running up the bag, and know I will enjoy the shoes. We are having a bit reveal at the quilt group meeting on Monday 28th, so no piccies til after then, in case anyone here decides to read this. the exhibition runs May 30th til June 2nd, and I will be practically living there! have forewarned dh about this, and he reminded me that we have a party here on the 31st to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. (actual date 27th May) I had not forgotten, it's written in my diary after all, but maybe it was a good thing he mentioned it!

travels, talks, courses and spending sprees

Well, I'm back from my travels and all set to go. I took my daughter back to England to spend the Easter holidays with her father, and took the time to catch up with my sons and friends, and to do a one day course at Art Van Go.
The travelling was pretty tedious as it usually is, 6 and a half hours on a plane is not my idea of fun, I would take sewing things with me, but the last time I did the combination of a metal daisy wheel cutter and a silver needle case brought the entire security team into play and held up the queue for far too long while I took everything out and showed them that it wasn't a bomb or the makings of one. and who needs that every time they travel? Sons and friends were all suitably pleased to see me, and we had the first of several boozy evenings together at the pub - what joy! well it is when there aren't any pubs out here at all.
I drove across country to get to Art Van Go, found it and then my B&B, which was excellent, so if any of you are planning to go to a course there, I will let you have the details. Comfy bed, delicious home made food, and hosts as chatty or not as you want them to be. and then the course. It was actually the first one I have done with them, living as I did in Herefordshire, it's not always so easy to get to Hertfordshire for the day, obviously it is much easier from Kuwait! anyway, I digress, as usual. the course was on dyeing and painting, and learning the differences between the two, devised and led by Viv because she reckons over the years the discussions about this subject alone would fill several books. She had about 3 different watching sessions with her doing the most talking and doing, interspersed with us doing the doing and some talking and several whoops moments and lots of ooh and ahh type moments. she put a gazillion bottles of stuff out and said help yourself. kids in sweety shops would not come close, but 12 women had pretty inane grins on their faces for most of the day!!! I wanted to do this course because I will have to do some dyeing/fabric colouring experiments for my C&G course, and having never done any before, wanted to get some sort of heads up first. not a bad decision.
Unfortunately, going on a course at AVG is a very dangerous thing. my credit card went into serious meltdown, and my luggage weight was in serious danger of being well over limit. however, I have reformed the plastic remains of my card, and just got away with a smile at check in. phew!! it was a brilliant day, and then the following morning I went back in to meet Sharon Osbourne, who was demonstrating techniques and chatting, and spent some more!! how useless am I. AVG loved me though!! maybe its just as well that I live in Kuwait and can't get there too often.
Since I've been back, I've finished a machine embroidered picture for Textile Challenges March challenge, which was the theme of doors and windows, using fabric, paper and a found object. I had finally had some inspiration the day before I left for England, typical! It's called secret garden. I have also been making quilt squares for various friends who are moving on over the next few weeks - looking forward to seeing the finished quilts. Can't say more in case any of them read this before we give them their quilts, but it'll be good. Am now finally making a start of a couple of quilts that need to be finished by May 25th - do I stand a chance? Not nearly, but I'll give it a go. We are having the KTAA annual exhibition at the end of May and then, gulp, they are going on to Birmingham for Quilts UK. I definitely don't stand a chance. And as if that is not enough to be going on with, I am repeating my C&G talk, with additions, to the whole KTAA next week, I also need to make some ATCs and some inchies for 2 different groups, AND (yes Sian I am still enrolled in your group) blooming well get on with my C&G stuff before I get the order of the boot. No pressure then! keep smiling everyone, I am, or is that insanity looming large?!!!

exciting day

I had a really great day yesterday, with one minor exception, visiting the dentist, but we won't dwell on that. It started with a Kuwait Textile Arts Association quilting group meeting. I am not a quilter, but it seemed like a good group to join and a great opportunity to find out more about quilting. good decision. I've been going now for 6 months, and have picked up so many little tips and ideas along the way.
Yesterdays meeting was my moment. I was asked to do a talk and show and tell about my C&G Certificate course in Embroidery, to give all the quilters a different slant on things. I am not a teacher or a public speaker, so I found it quite daunting, but once I got going I really enjoyed myself. Afterwards, one lady came and said I should have had the whole morning, not just half and hour, another said I should do a presentation to the main KTAA group at their monthly evening meeting, and a third asked if I would do a workshop on design techniques. Flattered? Swollen head?? Floating 3 feet off the ground??? All of those and more. I was just glad that folks seemed to like the presentation, and that I got through it ok, but then to have all that come at me was just amazing. I have also received a couple of emails from people saying how much they enjoyed it, and one lady asking about the distance learning courses so that she could explore the possibility of having a go herself. Result, wouldn't you say?
I also made the decision to buy a new sewing machine. One of the KTAA members won a machine at last years show, which she has not even taken out of the box. She decided to sell it and give the money to the Indian government Tsunami fund, which is still helping families rebuild their lives. So any way, now its mine, yey!! Its a Bernina Aurora 430. Any tips and advice gratefully received. I had a little play yesterday afternoon, and I think I am going to like this very much. My old machine, a 25+ year old New Home, (now Janome) has been fabulous, but doesn't seem to like doing the free machine stuff anymore, and always seems to have to think about dropping the feed or raising them again, which in not much good if you are in mid work. I will be getting the embellisher foot for it which is great as I couldn't justify buying the embellisher machine. One of the best parts of this for me though is that I paid for it with my earnings from my own business which I set up in December. I am a holistic massage therapist, and have been slowly building the business since Christmas. It gave me a lot of pleasure to realise that I had earnt enough to pay for the machine outright, without having to raid the joint bank account. Before getting remarried and moving out here last summer, I was a single mum/full time student for 3 years, and money was very tight. I guess this is my first reward/payback for all that hard work. And now to go and have another play.........happy dancing and big smiles all round!

c&g certificate work

I think that I have finally figured out how to post photos onto this blog, and have now got the ones of my c&g certificate projects to show you.
First up is the three dimensional piece. Based on Faberge eggs and my Phoenix design board. I made the phoenix feather on water soluble, which was really easy and great fun. the egg was a made fabric from scraps, threads, angelina, in flame colours, dark red at the bottom going up to orangey yellow at the top with fine wires stitched in on the top, stitched and stitched til it was firm enough to do something with. then joined to make the shape, and lined with some black sparkly fabric the same weight as fine interlining, ie light, that I got from a florist. the stand is not too successful as its just twisted wires, but not really strong enough to take the very little weight of the egg.

Whoops, this is completely out of order and should have come at the end. Its a pair of fairy shoes I made on a fabulous one day course with Annette Emms. We had to make them for a particular fairy and as you can plainly see they are for the sunflower fairy. My daughter had grown a sunflower from seed and brought it home from school, and these were for its fairy. No, she wasn't convinced either, but the lads at the pub humoured me! I have since made another pair of 'leopard skin' fairy shoes for a wild child fairy I know. They are great fun to make and everyone loves them.

Ok, back on track again. This one is my panel which was inspired by an amazing trip to Egypt. The whole thing is hand stitched on linen, with most of the stitching being couched, or made to look as though it was couched. The middle panel is 'or nue', a gold work technique, which I loved, but probably couldn't do now without a mega magnifier. I framed it in a black hinged tryptich type frame, which I had made at the local joiners and painted with blackboard paint. I wanted to have the effect of opening something completely plain and dark and finding this amazing brightly coloured panel. the duck and the sun near the bottom are my autograph, the duck being sa and the sun ra, and you read it left to right cos thats the direction the duck is facing. honest!
When the doors are closed, they are 'sealed' with this. Its a copy of the centre panel, made on coffee died pelmet vilene machine stitched, then backed with a second piece of dyed vilene, zigzagged round the edge and foiled with an old used piece of foil so that it looks worn and old. the thread is bundles of black and gold machine thread, chosen to look as though it had been gold thread that got old/tarnished/worn. the black bit in the bottom left corner is just where the stitching was too close together and the vilene fell out, so I coloured it black and hope/think it adds to the aged look.


This one is an extended sample. I got the idea when one dear friend, (male) after asking me after I had explained the course whether I meant 'like knitting', then told me about his mum's old pincusion - one of the old chinese ones with little china men with pigtails around the edge. Don't worry if you are all too young to know what the heck I am talking about, just ignore that bit. Anyway, I decided that if all else failed, I could always make a pincushion, and after a couple of glasses of wine that turned into a cushion made of pins, then into this. Alas dear reader, I confess, this was made in a state of mild inebriation. Its all metal;, metal mesh fabric, pins, washers and silver pan scourers unravelled.


This is my accessory, a muff to be used by the bride at a winter wedding instead of her having a bouquet of flowers. I saw the hedges full of old mans beard on the way to school with my sons one morning, and loved the way it was all intertwined, and that the leaves were almost heart shaped. Its velvet, with machine and hand couched threads, the leaves are black net, made on water soluble so that the residue when I rinsed them meant I could shape them before they dried. there is a machine wrapped twisted cord at either end, and a hand made tassel which you can only see the beaded head of in the bottom right of the picture.

And finally, this is my hanging. Its based on my daughter Mary's drawings which I had saved from when she was drawing tadpole people aged1 1/2 or so until she was in reception class at school, and the nursery rhyme Mary Mary quite contrary. This one I absolutely loved doing, sorry its not such a brilliant picture, but the close up at the bottom will give you a better idea. A mixture of machine and hand stitch, all from her drawings and doodling, on individual pieces of cloth, pieced together. The borders are quilted, and have a brilliant story. We had a stand in tutor for a day at college, who suggested that a quilted border could represent the loving relationship between her and me. All I had to do was find some motifs to quilt. When I picked her up from school that day, she had drawn a picture with a painted border onto which she had drawn hearts and stars and spirals. It was a real twilight zone moment, but they were perfect.


This is the centre part close up to give you a better idea of it all.