Word Bird

Boy oh boy, you all sure do get excited about the Tentmaker Applique. Guess I've gotten a bit jaded. I'll try to answer some of your questions.

The work starts with a piece of canvas which is a creme color. I've been reading too many cookbooks. Cream colored.

Almost all the rest of the work will be done with solid-colored cotton, which is fairly loosely woven. Some makers do use patterned calicos for very expat oriented work such as Santas and sometimes organza will be used for a watery effect over appliqued fishes. But for more traditional work it's solid cotton.

Depending on what final effect the maker wants, the initial canvas can be covered with a layer of colored cotton. That's the base. The applique is then worked onto that. There's no batting, but the work will be finished off with another layer of cotton on the back and a binding. It won't be tacked or quilted in any way.

One of the wallhangings I showed yesterday would run you about $125. Of course you'd have to pay the airfare to get here as well so it would end up costing a bit more than that :) Prices will vary according to how well it's made and how complicated the design is.

We have a couple of shops here selling Tentmaker Applique, one of which I showed you a pic of yesterday. The vast majority of the shops are located in downtown Islamic Cairo on Tentmaker Street, appropriately enough. I haven't made my way down there recently, not since September. I'll get down there one of these days, but the friend I usually go shopping with is out of town. I've been trying to work up the nerve to go all by myself, but haven't done it yet. I'm a little bit nervous about getting lost down there. It's not like the streets are signposted.

I don't have a lot of tentmaker work myself. I have the completely non-traditional Santa on a Camel and Santa on a Flamingo as well as the large piece that I commissioned in my favorite colors. I do however have this one:

I haven't shown you this type of applique before. I'm going to try and explain this and I may get it wrong. Figures aren't shown in Islamic art, that's why you see so much beautiful tile work in the Middle East. One way to work within this restriction is to show a figure that isn't really the figure. For example, the above piece looks like a bird, but it is made up of arabic letters. I can't remember exactly what it spells out (and it can be hard to decipher even for someone who knows arabic) but I'm sure it's something religious.

It's beautifully done, isn't it. This particular piece had a layer of white cotton placed over the canvas, since I dislike off-white. I'm so fussy, I know. I had to take the picture at this weird angle so that I didn't get the flash going off on the glass.

Tentmaker Patterns

Thank you all for the nice words about the quilt box and the quilts in it. You'll get to see them, you will. Just not yet. I only have a limited number of quilts, I can't blog them all at once ya know. Just like Santa, I'll know if you've been good or not. When the time is right, the quilts will be revealed.

In the meantime, here's a trip to a nearby Tentmaker's place. I was going to crop this picture down, but then thought you might enjoy just the glimpses of the different styles of work.

But my primary focus this trip was these two pieces. They're made with the same pattern. I'm pretty darn sure that the light blue in each of the quilts is the same fabric, and so are many of the other fabrics, but the placement is different in each one.

Unfortunately I got this one overbrightened in Picasa. I think it should be a bit softer.

So yesterday we had dinner over at friends'. It was my responsibility to make dessert and I discovered too late that I didn't have enough sugar. D'oh. The brownies, which are usually fabulous (the One Bowl Brownies recipe off the Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate box) were way too "healthy" tasting. Bleah. If I'd had more time to think about it (and have known how blechy they were going to turn out anyway) I'd have replaced some of the flour with sweetened cocoa. If they're gonna be bad, might as well experiment.

Pokey had a bad day yesterday. Not only did I walk into her (I most certainly didn't kick her - she was just all of a sudden in my way) but less than an hour later she got her tail caught in a closing door. Aiyee, that cry of pain is heart-rending. She's fine.

I've been doing a wee bit of quilting and sewing while watching the ridiculous BBC/Sci-Fi Channel mini-series "Invasion Earth." Can't say it's grabbing me at all, but I guess I'm enjoying it enough to have it on while I do other things.

Quilt Display Box

I took the plunge and loaded up my quilt box (for lack of a better term). What do you think? And by the way, the ugly carpet isn't mine - colors are way too dull for me.


I layered the bottom with a couple of really bright but cheap carpets. I used loads of acid-free tissue paper between the folds of the two large (for me) quilts that are in there. (And no, you haven't seen them full size yet in blogland, but may someday if you're good.) I was rather surprised to discover that I don't have any other quilts in these colors to put in the box. The other quilts are already up on the walls or in storage.

My sweetie was shocked that I intend to use this box as an end table. I figure it has to be functional, or what's the point. I do realize that little cat claws are going to scratch it up some and no doubt the little boogers will continue to knock water glasses over. That's life. Theoretically the box is polyeurothaned, so I suspect it'll do fine. And if it doesn't that just helps it look antique...

Now if anything bad happens to the other gorgeous, intricate cabinet I will bawl my eyes out. I love that thing. It's going to be our tv cabinet so it too will have a function. I'm thinking ahead: in Paris we will have to provide all our own furniture - whatever gets shipped from here or from storage. We didn't have a tv cabinet (left the ridiculously over-large tv armoire with the doors-that-were-never-shut behind in the house when we sold it) and now we will.

Yesterday we had a really oddly-colored dark sky here in Cairo. Wasn't a sandstorm because there was no wind. I was outside walking to quilting bee and couldn't figure out why there were groups of men standing around (that's not the unusual part) all looking up at the sky. Ah, yes, the eclipse. Of course none of the men were wearing any kind of eye protection or looking through the little boxes that I remember using in junior high when we had a partial eclipse. They're all gonna burn their eyes out. Have to admit I snuck a peak too. The sun looked like the moon. A bright white crescent.

Trip Around the World

This post is for Lily (human Aussie blogger Lily, not my cat), who asked what I do with my evil eye protection charms. They are up all over my walls. Some of them are much larger then you might expect. This Trip Around the World, aka Sunshine and Shadow, quilt hangs on the wall near my front door. The quilt is 45" square made up of 1.5" blocks.

It's one of my favorite quilts, made between May 1995 and April 1996. I think the colors and fabric all work. I love how the multicolor fabric gives me purple blocks in one spot and turquoise in another. Everytime I look at it I think, why am I not making another one of these? I guess if I wanted it to look even more Amishy I'd have put a really wide border on it, but I think it works without it.

This is the quilt that I learned what "easing" means, or rather doesn't mean. I was stretching and pulling my fabric to make it fit. D'oh. That is NOT easing. I managed to get it to work anyway and I have a nice chunk of leftovers in my orphan quilt, which I really will work on again one of these days.

Here's a detail. I just quilted Xs in each of the blocks with standard quilting thread.

I tried to get a good shot of my hallway, but it's just too dark. Still, you can see my quilt and some of my charms.

And here's the eye-in-the-hand-in-the-eye good luck piece that hangs next to the quilt. It's made out of faience: earthenware decorated with opaque colored glazes. This is a technique that goes back to the time of the pharohs. They made little blue hippos and things tho, not stuff like this.

Thanks for the lovely compliments about the darling baby Pokey pic from yesterday. She is my sweetheart. And in general, thanks for the comments. I love reading them. Ya'all have a good day.

Little Bit

Hey, I didn't just waste time goofing off today. I actually did some sewing, as well as net surfing. I suppose it helps that I finished off Dead Like Me so I didn't have that distracting me. I found it hard to do anything else but watch that show while it was on. Darn you Showtime for cancelling it. I would say something snarky about how all the tv shows I like get cancelled (I'm still darn cranky about Firefly and Angel) but Stargate SG-1 just seems to keep going and going and going.

I now have all the letters joined for "little spot" and "pumpkin pie" and I've got the letters made for "stinker" and "booboo."

Hmm, another bear reference. Booboo doesn't refer to a mistake but instead to Jellystone Park with Yogi Bear and Booboo. So that makes a Pooh Bear and a Booboo Bear.

I'm not liking how the purple accent is standing out. I did do a Picasa black and white check for contrast and it looked okay that way. Suppose it will be better after I get a bit more in there.

I'm still not completely certain how I'm going to sew this. Could be in rows like Bricks or in clumps, like Reach for the Stars. I'm leaning towards the latter, which is why there are big chunks of fabric pinned up as well as blocks.

Pokey decided that my fabric was the perfect napping spot. I had the towel down to block the sun, but it works as a fur-block as well, not that she sheds much.

In more mundane matters, woohoo, the car is finally fixed and we're now confirmed for our trip to Abu Simbel and Luxor. We've actually been to Luxor before, so we're skipping lots of stuff we've seen before like the Valley of the Kings, which I hated. The valley was way overcrowded, too hot even in November, and I felt claustrophobic down in the tombs and the incense was overwhelming... Apparently it's already hit the hundreds down in Luxor so it's just as well we're not going out to the valley where it's extra hot.

It actually rained like mad here in Cairo last night and it's only in the mid-60s right now. Ooh, just checked the internet weather and it says Luxor is 81 right now. Yeah, it's gonna be hot.