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.

summer holidays part two....

So having taken on the floods, the traffic and the emergency services, got to my friends wedding, and out again, I collected my daughter, and battled my way out to Birmingham airport, from where we flew to Scotland to join my dh and stepson. We had a fantastic week on the west coast, not far from Tarbert. Glorious sunshine, lots of playing about in the water, barbecues and chilling with friends. It is a beautiful place to visit.
My thoughts and prayers though remain with the thousands of people who were affected by the floods, not only in this area, but in the north west as well. their lives have been devastated, and it will be many months before they experience something like normality again.
From Scotland, we flew to spain, and spent 2 more fantatic weeks relaxing in the sunshine, and playing in the pool. We visited the aquarium at Valencia one day, and drove miles around some pretty precarious hilly tracks (roads is too dignified) on another, seeing some fantastic scenery on the way, ate some great tapas, drank lots of tinto verrano, (my spanish drink) and read the entire library of books in the villa. 6 if you're interested.
When we came back from Spain, we dropped my daughter back with her father, my stepson back with his mother, and then dh and I departed next day for Budapest. This city comes highly recommended. easy to get around, with buses, trams, metro and trolleybuses. plenty to see and do, some great restaurants, and shamefully, they speak pretty immaculate english. to be fair though, Hungarian is one of the most impenetrable languages in the world. We had 4 wonderful days there, filled with wonderful things to do, including the ethnography museum filled with beautiful folk costumes from the different regions and classes of the country from 100 years ago. sorry, no photos, my camera battery died. Dh then returned to Kuwait, and I headed to Birmingham for the last 2 days of IFQ at the NEC.

What a treat the IFQ was. I know that many of you visited for at least one day, and like me were absolutely blown away by it all. I caught up with Maggie Grey on the WOW stand, and with Angie Hughes of Ledbury Art Place, and met Ruth Isset at long last. I was there with the Faces of Arabia stand from Kuwait. You will have seen some of the quilts previously on this blog, but this one was new. and he would have pretty much stopped you in your tracks as you walked past our stand.
He is by Jenny Bowker, Australian quilter, and the lady who came to judge our show in May. We invited her to submit a quilt to show with ours at Birmingham.


However, the star of the show as far as we were concerned was our own Paramjeet Bawa. she took up quilting 5 years ago, and was persuaded to enter one of her quilts, called 'Duststorm', into the pictorial competition. She was placed second, won the amateur award, the best use of colour award, and the judges award. We later found out that she had also won the viewers choice award. the quilt then went to Houston, and today, Paramjeet has found out that it received an honourable mention there. Are we proud bunnies or what?!!! For those of you who didn't make it to the show, or didn't see it, here it is:

















There followed a week of visiting friends, travelling the length and breadth of the country, before returning to Ledbury, and a 21/2 day workshop with Angie Hughes. Now that is the way to finish a holiday, well nearly. there were 4 of us, in the heat of a proper summers weekend playing, sorry, working with mixed media, and having so much fun. I will add photos to this when I get my work back from the art teacher I have lent it to. The Ledbury Art place offers all sorts of wonderful workshops throughout the year, but this was the first time I have been able to fit one in.

My last textile trip of the holidays was to the Forge Mill Needle museum in Redditch to see the finalists in the Charles Henry Foyle Trust competition. The winner Karin Millson, lives in the Middle East, and has just finished a C&G level 3 Diploma in design and stitched textiles with Sian Martin and Distant Stitch. (the same course I am on). The pieces was a hanging, and was a very clear winner. Congratulations to Karin.

So anyway, that is why I have been out of contact for so long, promise not to let it be so long til the next post. Now I am concentrating on the first meeting of the KTAA, but more of that next post.

so how did you spend your summer....?

I flew into Heathrow on Friday July 19th. Nothing personal to anyone for whom its a special day, but for me, just another ordinary day. Not so. My plane was held circling over Chatham docks for an hour, in the thunderstorms - nice! NOT. And then, once we landed, there was so much rain on the ground that they could neither pull planes back nor dock newly landed ones, so we sat in said plane for 2 long hours waiting. Eventually docked and allowed off, it then took another hour for our luggage to get to us. by this time, I was beginning to lose my sense of perspective.... but the day wasn't finished with me yet. oh no! I picked up my hire car from a very friendly girl at Avis, who asked where I was travelling to and when I said Gloucestershire, warned me the M4 was a bit busy.
Are you with me yet? have you connected the date with anything? No? read on. It took me 3 hours to get to Chievley (?) services, and then another 6 to get as far as Cheltenham. I started picking up traffic news of torrential rain and flooding in the gloucestershire/worcestershire area, but hey, I've lived in the area for years, it always floods there, what was the problem this time? By the time I reached Cheltenham I finally decided that I had had enough. It was 2:30am, I had had nothing to eat or drink since the lunch on the plane, and I was tired. Looking around I found I was inching past a Catholic church, and decided I would take protection from any source available. I pulled in and managed 2-3 hours sleep in the car, (note to fellow car hirers, Renault Clios, while excellent cars in many ways, are not comfortable for sleeping in) before resuming my journey (ha).
After inching along for another few miles, I found a garage which had stayed open all night to look after stranded motorists - mega kudos - the poor chap was worried he would be sacked for not doing his paperwork. the fact that he had taken a months worth of money in one night should have been something in his favour, I hope so anyway. Back on the road again, it took another 3 hours to get onto the motorway which was pretty empty of moving vehicles, but the hard shoulder was chock full of abandoned ones, and I mean abandoned. cars at every angle you can imagine. It looked like one of those armageddon type movies.
reached Tewkesbury, nearly my destination, pulled off the motorway, drove about a mile down the road and stopped. A man was moving slowly from car to car, and when he got to me, told me I couldn't get through that way as there was 5 feet of water on the main street. OK. even I know my limitations, and walking, or driving on water is not my strong suit. He asked me where I was going, and when I told him Twynning, he replied "Not a cat in hell's chance". I had just been travelling for 30 hours at this stage, through what could be called an unpleasant experience, and I was not about to be beaten by a little water. but I was tired. so I rested my head on my steering wheel for a second. At which, this darling man turned into a modern day Sir Galahad, told me to park on the verge and come and let his wife make me a nice cup of tea. So I did, and she did, and their daughter made me some toast, and thus fortified, I headed back to the motorway and down to the M50 junction.
Why, I hear you ask, was I trying to get to Twynning? My dear friend Su was getting married at midday there, that's why. She even phoned the local radio station asking if anyone had a 4 wheel drive, or a tractor, or a boat to help get her from Worcester to Twynning. I spent a slightly damp but otherwise surprisingly pleasant couple of hours hanging around at the entrance to the M50, chatting to the slowly increasing number of people wanting to get to Twynning. At about 10:30am, we were all discussing amongst ourselves why we wanted to get there, and when I said for my friends wedding, one of the emergency guys butted in and asked if that was the one on the radio. When I said yes, he got straight on the phone, and while it might be totally unconnected, we were taken down to the junction for Twynning in convoy within the half hour. So I got there. As for the bride, no one answered her SOS, so she drove her and her mum herself. they did fine until they got stopped in a line of traffic in one of the villages on the way. they had 7inches of water on the road, not dangerous like some places, but the police were restricting the traffic to one car at a time in alternate directions. Su's mum got out of the car, walked down to the police man and explained that her daughter was getting married in half an hour and it could take them that long to get through. the police man said what the one on the radio, and then, it was like one of those feel good movies, the police man called to his mate at the other end of the flood and told him to stop all vehicles from his end, as there was a special one coming through from this end, Su got waved on, everyone was singing here comes the bride and tooting horns, and she got to the wedding on time. Hooray! And this is the happy bride, groom and family.

Distant Stitch Summer school at Urchfont

In which I met a wonderful group of new friends, learnt some fabulous new techniques and ate more delicious food than is good for one person.

I arrived at Urchfont in not quite sunshine on Sunday afternoon to find the exhibition of students' work and the textiles masterclass in full swing. For those like me who have / had never been to Urchfont, it is a beautiful old Queen Anne style ? house set in some lovely grounds which has been turned (very successfully) into a residential centre by Wiltshire council. I had time to wander around and view all the exhibits, chat to a few of the makers, meet my Distant Stitch tutor, Sian Martin, spend another small fortune with Art Van Go - (see previous post to find out how much I didn't need to do that!) and Winifred Cottage, get a cuppa and then check in! By then I needed a lie down to recover.

The summer school started in the cellar bar before dinner, where we all introduced ourselves over a glass of wine. There were several summer school stalwarts, as well as a good sprinkling of new bods like me, but everyone, without exception, was so friendly. Just goes to show what a great bunch we textile peeps are. At 7 they rang a gong for dinner and we all trooped upstairs to the lovely old dining room, with views over the croquet lawn, and sat down for the first of the most delicious meals. 3 courses of it, plus cheese and fruit if you could manage it!!! fantastic!!! After dinner it was over to our classrooms in the converted stable block, where Sian kicked us off with some "easy" drawing exercises. ha ha! we all did have great fun, and what was even better was that there genuinely was no sense of competition. Obviously there will always be a few who can draw anything standing on their head, blindfold, and whistling dixie. I'm pleased to say Sian didn't quite put us through that much, but she certainly kept us up to the mark!

the following day we started a two day Metal Magic course with Maggie Grey. It was both huge fun and just so brilliant to meet and work with her. She is so full of energy and enthusiasm, generous with her time and knowledge, and hugely encouraging, whatever your ability level. We did of course do far more than work with metal;we played with paper pulp, tissue paper backgrounds, velvet backgounds, wrapping, expandaprint, spirit dyes, walnut ink moonshadow paints, and so much more. Oh, and we got to use an embellisher. (Now that was fatal. We all want one now.) We all even managed to create at least one resolved piece from all the disparate bits we had made, which is really impressive given none of us planned anything terribly carefully and had odd pieces in different colours. But it worked.

Our second evening found us turning our drawing exercises into a line drawing and then into Kantha. Again great fun, and just right for pace to sit and sew quietly as I'm not sure how much more we could have absorbed at that stage. The last evening we watched a film, which had won an award at last year's Cannes film festival, and which was about 2 women, in various stages of muddle in their individual lives, brought together by embroidery. Very gentle in the way only the French can manage, but rather lovely.

In between all this ferocious activity, Sian managed to pull us out at intervals for group tutorials. We were there after all because we are going through one or other C&G course! We are on different courses, at different stages of those courses, but the whole thing seemed to be remarkably calm and well organised. And goodness, there is some stunning work evolving.

And did I mention the food? A full cooked breakfast as well as cereal, fruit and toast every morning, home made biscuits at coffee time, a cooked meat and vegetarian option, jacket potatoes and salads, plus pudding at lunch time, home made cake at tea time and then the 4 course dinner. Just as well we didn't have far to waddle between our accommodation and the class room - although maybe it would have done us good if it was a bit further! We did manage a stroll down to the village duck pond, and had time to make a small piece for one lady who had been unable to come at the last minute. But when I finally left, and drove to my friend's house, I was pleasantly exhausted. It was a great feeling. I do so hope that I will be able to go again next year. here are a few pictures. sorry some of them are a little dark, but hopefully they will give you a taste of it.

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!

a talk and an election

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I did a talk to the KTAA quilting group about my C&G embroidery course a few weeks ago. this went down so well, that they asked if I would do it again only more for the main KTAA meeting on April 28th. in the first flush of relief and exhilaration at getting through it, I said yes. what came across from the feedback after the first talk was that they would all have like to have seen more of my design work, and something of the design process. the first part of that was slightly problematic, I have not got my design boards any more, BUT...one of my partners in crime at college took some photos of them during our year end exhibition. I sent her an email, asking if by any chance she still had them, and whether she could send them to me. and I waited, and I waited, and then finally, 3 days before the talk they arrived. she had been away and not picked up her messages! the relief at seeing them was huge. I took them on a memory stick to the local printers who made them poster size.



















so here they are, and full credit to Sue Jewkes, who took the pictures and got them to me in time. the first one above shows all six boards, from the top left, living forms, based on seahorses - particularly their tails, below that is a photo montage of a bluebell wood for the landscape/geological features board, and below that in a book, is the man made items and structures board, based on the cast iron decorations at Great Malvern Station. sorry you can't see that one so well. back to the top right, the water and sky board, based on an Escher print. we had to do one board in only black and white, so this was it. below that is the folk culture, history and religion board, which I based on the legend of the phoenix, and finally below that is my media board, based on my daughter's drawings. they were very popular, and actually quite good for me to see them again, you forget so quickly what you were doing/thinking and where you were going at the time. I then mocked up some design work process pieces, starting with that old chestnut weaving 2 pages from a magazine and isolating areas of interest. honestly, you would have thought I had invented the wheel, they had never seen anything like it. so then of course I had to agree to running a design workshop in the autumn.
the first half of the evening was taken up with the KTAA agm. as a result of which, I am now the new President. Pleased to say they elected me before my talk, but I think it would have been ok either way round! My first job is running, in tandem with my predecessor, the annual exhibition of work, some of which will be going to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in August. Photos to follow. So wish me luck, and if any of you have any brilliant ideas for talks for our monthly meetings, let me know. the KTAA stands for kuwait textile arts association by the way, so any textile related subject is allowed, and it can be macro or micro focused.