Happy holidays!

The Tentmakers of Cairo

The text in this posting is copied with her permission from an email by Jenny Bowker and the gorgeous photos are taken from her Pinterest board. Please read this and if you can, help!

The Tentmakers are a group of men in Cairo who make spectacular applique. Nowadays most of what they make is intended for the walls of houses or on beds, but in Pharaonic, early Islamic, and Ottoman times it was intended for the inside walls of tents. With canvas behind it which formed the outside wall, the rich appliqué glowed with light on it, and was intended to amaze visitors to a leader's tent. Did you know that Cairo was originally called Fustat - which means the big tent? In Pharaonic times the tents were appliqued leather, now all the work is cotton.



You can read more text about them here.
You can see a short video made by Bonnie McCaffrey for Luana Rubin here and a longer one made by Bonnie as one of her wonderful vidcasts here.
And if you go to my Pinterest board on the Tentmakers you will see a lot of current work - and some that is much older and also some of the truly old tents so you can see how they were used.



The art has been slowly dying. Big pieces of cheap, badly registered, printed fabric made in China have poured into Cairo and people buy this rather than the real appliquéd pieces. On top of that disaster - tourism has stopped with unrest for the last two years. Without the work sold in exhibitions that I have been arranging in other countries they would all be gone by now - instead - stitchers who left are coming back and young ones are learning again. I am thrilled with the progress we have made and very happy with the AQS who committed to them for three years. But - it is still hardly documented at all. There is not one piece in the Cairo Museum or even in the Cairo textile museum. The best article I have ever found is in the Uncoverings magazine and there are no books. Older stitchers are dying and no history has been written.



Kim Beamish is an Australian who is making a film about the Tentmakers in these difficult times. He has given most of five days a week for the last seven months - or more. He has paid his own way to shows in England, and has had to pay for three more that have not even happened yet in France and two in America. He has become part of the street and the men are used to him and his camera.

The movie will not be made without funding for the essentials - the long and boring stages when the filming is done and the hard work starts. Editing, top level translation and the rest has to be done by experts and paid for. Please help. Even a little bit from a lot of people will add up to a lot - that is what crowd funding means. The link is now open and working. If he does not get to his total he gets nothing. Kim will spend the month hovering over the site and biting his fingernails.

The work is really special and the film is essential. Kim Beamish has a Facebook page for the film where he is putting up new images constantly, and there is a lot lot of historical input as well.

This is the link to support the Film - The Tentmakers of Chareh el Khiamiah. If Kim Beamish does not get this money the film cannot be made. Even tiny donations will help and big donations will help more. Please.

If you use PayPal it will ask you to preauthorise. It sounds odd but it simply means that when the total is reached the money will then be taken from people's accounts so it has to be done this way. Kim gets nothing if he does not reach his total and that is the way that Pozible works.

I am hoping a lot of people will have read this far and be willing now to help us. PLEASE send this on to as wide an audience as you can reach. The moment the total is reached the project will be assured. Until then it looks as if it might be dead in the water.

Thank you
Jenny Bowker

Walfie

Remember Lily and Gus, the Etsy shop I featured here in March? I got one of their whales for my youngest son, who loves cuddly toys. I gave it to him when he had a migraine and had just vomited all over his beloved Bear...

While Bear was cleaned, Walfie kept him company, and he quickly became one of Robbie's favourites. He took him along when we went to Europe and there a very sad thing happened... We stayed in many different places and somewhere along the way Walfie got lost :-(. Robbie was devastated, and once we were back home I asked Ashley if she could make another whale like the one we had. She could, and did, and it arrived here last week. Robbie was overjoyed, and so was Bear!



Meanwhile, Lily and Gus is a finalist in the Martha Stewart Presents American Made Awards - how awesome is that?! If you click on the link you can vote for them, and go in the draw for the sweepstakes as well!

Happy days

After the last posting I received an email from Cherilyn Martin, an English quilter living in the Netherlands. She had read the article about me in the Dutch Quilters Guild magazine and asked if I would like to meet with her as she was flying to Brisbane two days later! Of course I would, and I found Kate and Alison willing to join us, so we had a lovely lunch with some show and tell on Friday at South Bank. Thanks ladies, I enjoyed it very much!



Cherilyn is now teaching a workshop in Townsville and will be in Sydney after that.



Today, on my birthday ;-), I received an email congratulating me with the sale of my Balance 3 quilt in the SAQA Benefit Auction. It sold for $150 - I am very proud and happy!

Call for entries

This exhibition sounds very interesting, I have put my thinking cap on!
(actually the quilt I am working on at the moment fits the size requirements - but ice skating is not something that is often found Beneath the Southern Sky, I'm afraid ;-)...)



PS As you will have noticed if you read this, my blog is now at www.lindarobertus.blogspot.com. If you are a follower or link to my blog on yours, you may have to follow/link again because the old url, www.lindarobertus.com, is now directed to my website... Sorry for the incovenience and thank you for continuing to visit me!

Busy

Long time no blog - I have been very busy since the last posting but haven't got much to show for it. I finished the Animal Kingdom quilt for Art Quilts Around the World but can't show it here yet... Too bad, because I am really excited about this quilt! I think it's my best one for AQATW so far. You will have to wait six more days for the unveiling.

I've also done some boring but necessary tasks like sewing sleeves on quilts... And most of all I have been busy with my family - DH was away for a week so I had to taxi everyone to taekwondo grading, band performance, gymnastics training etc... And take care of my little one who was sick again - it looks like he suffers from migraine, poor little mite, he's only four years old :-(.

This weekend my oldest is competing in the Queensland State Gymnastics Championships; very exciting! And next Thursday we are off for a few days camping at beautiful Wooyung Beach again (see photo above) - I am really looking forward to that!

Flooded

Unless you are living on the moon you will by now have heard about the flooding in Queensland, Australia. The Brisbane River reached its peak last night and many, many buildings are inundated. The photo above (from the Courier Mail) shows a flooded street corner in the Brisbane CBD, the one below was taken by my husband yesterday; it shows the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital where he works (and where I work on my thesis on Fridays).



We are incredibly lucky to be living in a high-lying suburb, not close to the river or one of its tributaries, and we have had no problems at all - thank God. But we have spent the last few days glued to the television, radio and internet to follow what was happening in Sout-East Queensland and our thoughts are with the victims of this disaster, and their families.

With all this happening, and our 4-year old being sick for the last 2 days, you will understand that I have not done any sewing or quilting recently. I did manage to work my way halfway through this wonderful book:



If you are interested in learning to draw I can highly recommend it, and even if you are not, it is a fascinating read. Here are some of the exercises I have done so far:



I think it will be useful to finish this book before I get back to the Sketchbook Challenge.

Zebras

My two oldest boys had Letterland Day today at school and both wanted to dress up as ZigZag Zebra. So I made them some pants and t-shirts with the zebra fabric that I have had for years (I made some ATCs with this fabric in 2008). They loved them ;-).

Not much quilting done this week, except the sleeve on the Op Art Quilt which will be auctioned tomorrow at the Creative Arts Spectacular Gala Night. Brrr... scary!
Here it is in my sewing room - if it doesn't sell I'll be happy to take it back and hang it there!

Silk paper and chalk placemats

After finishing a quilt (or as in this case, several quilts) I usually feel like doing some small, fun projects. So yesterday I made silk paper (there's a good tutorial in the first Down Under Textiles) and today some chalk pacemats:



I got the idea at Jackie's blog - I did have a small piece of chalk fabric and of course I will have to make three placemats, which is why they have this size... I used the Dutch oilcloth for the back.

Robbie loves his mat and demonstrates how to use it!
First you work very hard to make a beautiful drawing:



Then you wipe it off:



And finally you turn the mat to have your dinner!



It was just him and me at dinner, for hubby is in Athens (Greece), Hugo has a sleepover at a friend's house and poor Ernst is sick and spent most of the day in bed. I should have been at work, but stayed home with him while the nanny took his brothers to the park (we had been at home all day yesterday because Ernst was sick, so they did need some fresh air and exercise), and made the placemats while he was sleeping.

And to end on a happier note: remember the video I showed here a while ago? Here's another one in that series! I found it on Sandy's blog.



We could really use one of those stairs here in Brissy...

This and that

I've finished the top for the Art Quilts Around the World challenge and sent it off to Melbourne. Time for a new project! Yesterday I took one of my bicycle prints and added the shadow with a paint stick. That has to dry now for 2 days, so I took a try out piece of painted and quilted fabric that has been laying here for months (since October, acutally - I posted it here when I had just painted it) and made it into a new case for my sunglasses:



I just saw that my Robot Calligram fabric won the 6th place in the fabric contest at Spoonflower - out of 116 entries, that's not bad, is it! Thanks to everyone who voted for me, I appreciate it! Next week the contest theme is Nautical - I might design something for that...

And finally, here is a very amusing video that I found on a gymnastics blog (no, it's not about gymnastics). Go and have look, you'll love it!



I wish they had one of those slides at Brisbane Central Station!

*Glow*

I am glowing with pride after reading Lyric Kinard's blog post about me!
I did her Freeform Screen Printing class at Quilt University last year which was great fun and has led to my series of gymnastics quilts.

Actually, MAGnificence will be exhibited today for the first time at the Australian Quilt Convention in Melbourne - how I wish was there! (if I was I would also go and see the men perform at the Pacific Rim Gymnastics Championships, and I see now they also have a KLM Dutch Orange Day on Sunday... sigh, wish we lived in Melbourne!)

Anyway - Lyric is teaching her screen printing class again in May and you can sign up for it now. I highly recommend it!



PS It's good that I am not in Melbourne this week - the hospital called that there is a fracture in Robbie's arm after all, so I have to take him in today. Sigh...

More bikes, and a gymnast

I finally made a freezer paper screen of another biker and printed it - this one is based on a pic of my second son Ernst (5) riding a bike without the trainer wheels for the first time!



It does not always go so well... Robbie, our 3-year old, was riding Ernst's bike (with trainer wheels) on Saturday and fell off - here's the result:



Once his and Bear's arms were set he was quite happy and he is now without pain and doing everything - except riding a bike!

And Hugo (7) had his first gymnastics competition on Sunday - no medals (he was quite disappointed) but we thought he did very well, considering he is one of the youngest boys in his level and it was his very first competition!


(click to enlarge)

I'm very proud of my boys!

:-)

Blog facelift and giveaway

As you may have noticed, I have given this blog a facelift in the last few days. I have changed the header, cleaned up the sidebar and, most importantly, added three pages (many thanks to Brenda Smith who mentioned this new feature of Blogger on her blog). If you click on the tabs under the header you can find out more about me and view my contemporary and traditional quilts.



To celebrate the new look I am having a giveaway! For a chance to win this Selvedge Shopping Sack (36x45cm/14x18in), featured in Down Under Quilts issue 139, just leave a comment on this posting and tell me what you think of the new look of this blog. Does it look good? Do you have any suggestions for further improvement? Let me know!



Here are two close-ups of the bag (click to see a bigger picture). It has never been used - not that I don't like it, but I still have my original selvedge bag and I don't need two!

I will draw a winner one week from today, on Tuesday March 23rd. If selvedge bags aren't your thing I would still love to hear from you, and would be happy to make a fiber postcard (15x15cm/6x6in) for you.

Mama

Twenty three years ago on this day, December 1st 1986, my mother died. She was 44 years old and I was 17. It makes me sad that I have already lived much longer without her than with her. I so wish she could have met my husband and my children...

This is my favourite photo of her, me and my grandmother (her mother). It was made on my third birthday. My father left us before I was born and I was raised by these two women. My mother had a progressive disease and when my grandmother died (when I was 15) she moved to a nursing home. I lived with two foster families until I finished high school and started university in another city. Those years were not the best of my life, but I have fond memories of the first 15 years. As you can see they loved me very much.

Busy

I haven't done any sewing in the last week, as I have been (and still am) very busy turning our emigration blog into a book, using this website. It's a lot of work but it will be great to have the whole story of going to and living in Brissy in a book!

I did some fabric dyeing today though: two series of FQs in five gradations (yellow and purple) and two half metre pieces (purple and green).