Just after our 2007 trip to Egypt I wrote in this blog about The Tentmakers , all men, who make appliqued fabric wall hangings tradionally used to line tents, and today still provide gorgeous wall hangings as backdrops to festive events.

At the top, Ashraf is shown sewing in the traditional sewing position, which for various reasons I would find impossibly uncomfortable, and so would most needleworkers I know.  Small fabric shapes are cut out with gigantic scissors (usually 12″ blades) and rapidly sewn to the backing fabric by hand, as shown.   In the lower pics, at left is a tent selling printed fabrics, and the lower right shows how genuine hand made hangings were used at the campsite in The White Desert where we  spent a night.

It’s an ancient craft, going back over 800 years.  But the craft and ancient heritage is largely unappreciated in Egypt itself, where people get the same visual effect from cheaper printed fabric featuring traditional designs.   The tentmakers are thus heavily dependent on tourism, where visitors to the city inevitably marvel at the work and take away as much of it as they can afford – we certainly did !  – that is IF they have heard of it and know where to find this one street in the old Islamic quarter of Cairo.  It’s not usually publicsed by hotels or tour operators.  We were taken there by friend Jenny Bowker who, during the time her husband served as Australia’s ambassador to Egypt, must have personally taken hundreds, perhaps thousands, of visitors there, and that she had become very good friends with these people was highly eveident.  Without her we would not have been shown this large important commission in progress:

Jenny is pictured holding and looking at one of the set of ninety nine, that’s 99,   1.5m long wall hangings, of widths varying from 3-5m, and that’s a huge amount of fabric and work!  I don’t remember which number they said this one was …. When finished the set of hangings was destined to be installed in a large building in another middle eastern country.  At top left is a portion of one hanging turned to show the back – the fabric is appliqued directly to canvas, perhaps a sail weight,  and the needle picks up just a few of the threads with each stitch.  At right the owner of the workshop and showroom is holding one of the many cartoons from which the shapes were meticulously drawn onto the fabric, and for which every small piece of fabric was cut.  It would have been very important to get the symbols and heiroglyphics exactly right on these hangings.

There’s currently a fundraising campaign to support the maker of a full length documentary on the tentmakers and their craft.  The purpose is to broaden the knowledge of this work within and outside of Egypt.  Since leaving Egypt, Jenny herself has taken collections of the tentmakers work usually accompanied by one or two of the craftsmen themselves, to quilt, textile and fibre art exhibitions and galleries in Australia, UK, europe and north america.  Textile lovers have become enthusiastic fans and collectors – but a documentary dvd will be another valuable tool in publicising this wonderful traditional textile art.  With the political instability of the past couple of years these people are hurting more than ever as tourists stay away from Egypt.  But nothing stays the same for ever, and it is hoped that as conditions improve, more people will know in advance of one place they really should visit when in Cairo.  If you want to know how you can help, visit the Facebook page for The Tentmakers of Chareh El-Kiahmiah where you  can always see lovely pics and comments, sign up for a newsletter each month, and make a financial donation to help the film project on its way.

The february 2nd birthday of the sea goddess appproaches, and this nice offering was seen recently on our local beach.

Just after new year, we were fortunate to visit Cuba.  What a fascinating place, and we had a memorable time.   Knowing things are starting to change there, for some time we’ve wanted to see this country before the pace of change accelerates.   I was only 12 in 1959 when Fidel Castro’s communist government took power after six years of armed revolutionary struggle, and so have little memory of that except that my parents were concerned and became very stressed, along with the rest of the world, as international tensions heightened in the leadup to the Bay of Pigs and the Russian/Cuban Missile crisis of the Kennedy era.  As the economic blockades and sanctions tightened, Cuba became isolated from countries that were not communist, and the resulting isolation has had profound long term effects still highly apparent, so that arriving there today gives the visitor a strong sense of stepping back in time – much as we experienced when we first started coming to Uruguay just 4 years after the end of the last dictatorship here, only much more pronounced.

One fascinating thing we saw, which we might not have happened upon or understood without our guide, was a small group of people down at the water’s edge who were meeting with a shaman (green headgear)  He conducted their offering ceremony to the water goddess.   The blue shopping bag you can see on the river’s edge just in front of the lady with the white hat and shoes, contained the same corn, lentils and other grains, fruit, vegetables, fabric, bottle of scent and cheap glittery jewellry that form similar offerings here.  We didn’t like to go close with our cameras, but stood back and watched them place things in the water and wash devotional objects including some fabric.   From our guide it was quite clear that with some local differences, this is the same spiritual belief system  – brought to the continent with the African slave trade from early in the C16.

Some day soon I’m going to re-listen to the recorded book (in english translation) of “Island Beneath The Sea’ by Isabel Allende, a fabulous story of the early plantation  era of the caribbean islands including Haiti and Cuba.

During the blogs on the creation of this group of quilts, this was the one I used repeatedly to show various stages; so here it is finished and named “Tidelines 9”   Shortly after the photography, the quilts “Tidelines” 8 – 12  were on their way to Australia where they will appear in the Golden Textures Exhibition in Maryborough Vic, next February.  The design inspiration for each quilt were some sand ripple patterns photographed on my beach walks, hence the title.

Computer manipulation of the images simplified the shapes.

The whole saga of how I got to stencilling the gold shapes,  followed by free machined stitch lines and stippled quilting was posted in October. 

Hence the title.

Continuing with my occasional series on beach offerings – this interesting one the other day was a bit different.  In a box were quite a number of foods –

you can see white beans, corn, what look like dulce de leche stuffed pastries, there were meringues, and something wrapped in dark brown shiny packaging – could have been anything from chunks of meat, cake, soap perhaps – or judging by what seemed could be waterproof wrapping, perhaps something paper.  I ruled out dolmades – the contents appeared quilt rectangular. A number of yellow candles were inside, too.   I never touch anything  at these sites so did not break this rule to unwrap one and see what was inside.  Also in the box were  carnations, a bottle of scent and it was all originally under yellow celophane, but the birds had broken through that and pulled it back to feast on the contents.  Several 10 peso coins had been tucked into the food – on the close up detail you can see one right in the centre of that panel, its brass/copper  metal edged with silver metal.