busy busy

When I showed you the pic of the entrance to my apartment, you couldn't see the left side of the quilt very well. These are a couple of my evil eye protection charms that hang from the hook on that side.

I spent the last two days helping a friend with her packout. Whew, glad that's over, at least for now. The first day I helped her with the organization and I'm ruthless about throwing out expired foods, meds etc. Yesterday I was there to help keep track of what was going in what box while eight different packers went at it.

One of the men was a sweetie - 85 years old, hard of hearing, one tooth and really good at packing the big furniture items. The men all looked out for him and carried the heavy items for him. I sure hope I don't have to work that hard if I make it to that age. Heck, I don't want to work that hard ever.

And speaking of work, that's actually what I should be doing. Gotta go pack my quilts and fabric, and definitely toss more unneeded items out. So no more procrastinating from me. I'll be scarce online for the next week or so. Ya'all take care.

Naive Embroidery

I know this will get repetitive, but I can't believe how soon I will be leaving Egypt. In some ways I am soooo ready to go already but it's going to be hard to leave the friends I've made, at least the ones that are staying. One of my friends already moved away and two more will be going before my sweetie and I do. Big changes.

One of the things I have loved the most about Egypt is the folk art. This is a piece of naive embroidery done by a craftswoman from the Mottamadaya Women's Association, a fair trade organization. The women were trained in embroidery by a Dutch woman and they depict common Egyptian scenes. When I first moved here three years ago there was a huge selection of these pieces available, but not so much anymore. I hope that's because they're being exported now and making these women some much needed money.

Anyway, this is one I own. The embroidered scene is roughly 15" square.

I bought this particular work because I loved the rooster wearing boots. And hmmm, something interesting going on with the man in the upper right, with the face both looking sideways and straight ahead.

I love this row of buildings. First is a church (crosses on the roof), the middle aqua-colored house has two of the pigeon houses (the domed things with sticks) I told you about in a previous embroidery post, and the building on the far right is a mosque (crescents on the roof). Very integrated.

The only thing the houses are missing is the satellite dishes, which are on every apartment building. This is the view out of my computer room window. There are the dishes and then the dome of the nearby coptic church.

Here's a woman baking bread. Behind her is a water jug, if that's the proper name for it. You see these all over here in Egypt, rather than drinking fountains.

This is what the water vessels look like:

I was a good girl yesterday and got the ginormous backing finished for my bed quilt and the backing for one of the charity quilts. So making some progress, that's good. I desperately wanted to start playing, but managed to hold off.

Sweetie and I started watching the third season of Monk. I'd resisted getting it because of the departure of Sharona, but Laura convinced me the shows are still good.

Batik Backing

I do not understand how some quilters can make huge bed-sized quilts over and over again. I just find it horrendous to work on a large scale. And that was even before I had cats.

I guess I should be glad that Lily was playing in the pool of fabric at my feet as I was at the cutting table (much safer for her, tho still pesty). She then found a comfortable spot as I was sewing the large bits of fabric together for my backing. Turns out her favorite basket was under the pile.

Doesn't she have the daintiest little legs? She was a skinny kitten, we rarely saw her eat and she was (and is) a yacker. (A regurgitator, does that sound better?) We called her The Supermodel. Now she has a thick torso. Not fat, not at all, she's just built solid. Still has the gorgeous gams tho.

So I'm making progress sewing the backing fabric together. Using up the batiks that I still find mostly gorgeous, but am no longer interested in working with on the front of a quilt.

Aussie Lily, I'm not worried about the seams being straight on the back (that doesn't bother me). But I need to be able to join the bits together so I have to cut the fabric relatively straight. My infamous V-cut superpower cutting skills do not help. I end up with waves that I then have to straighten...

I made brownies the other day. I am now officially out of sugar AND corn syrup which I had to use as a substitution (note to self: never do that again). Didn't turn out the greatest and I'm hoping I have the willpower to throw out the rest rather than eating them anyway just cuz they're chocolate.

Another quilt blogger has joined our midst. Say hello to Brigitte in Duesseldorf, Germany. I was telling you about her in my last post and I'm thrilled she's made the jump into bloggerdom.

Creatively Minded Pam has used the wonky letters to great effect with a large piece of fabric. Who'd of thought there'd be so many cats out there who like to sleep in sinks... (That last bit will make sense if you go check out her site)

Jenny at Three Ring Circus Quilting is making a challenge quilt. She's got some great colors and different sizes of Xs and Os - gonna be fun to see how they go together.

KCQuilter Vera has made a great Halloween house (her first wonky house) and explains how she appliqued BOO.

Cats may be missing the charity boxes -- I'm certainly not -- but they're making do. I threw the sheet over these ones so that my little chewers wouldn't destroy the cartons. This is Habibi, King of the Mountain.

Cat Antics

Would you look at this? [First few paragraphs are all cat-related. Feel free to skip ahead.]

I thought I'd broken Pokey of the habit of drinking water out of glasses, but she started again recently. She and Habibi are the worst offenders. He laps at it when a glass is full and very rarely I have caught him dunking a paw in (eeeu, why does my water taste like kitty litter? And yes, I know what kitty litter tastes like - it's impossible to keep the dust out of my mouth/nose when I'm pouring the fresh stuff into the litter box). I've never seen Pokey's little head this far down in the glass before.

Uh oh, here comes Lily to investigate. As you can see, this is all taking place on the computer desk. Better get that glass of water before it gets knocked over.

I managed to avert the flood.

My friend Susie has a cat named Sparky, who loves her dearly and vice-versa. He loves to be cradled in her arms and is incredibly sweet. To Susie. As he gets older he's getting more territorial and aggressive to non-family (and even to them when a stranger is in the house). I just figured it was people who don't know how to deal with cats b/c Sparky has always been sweet to me.

Yesterday I was petting him and he was very friendly. Then Susie went into another room and Sparky flipped out when I tried to walk into the kitchen. Ran at me, grabbed my leg with his front paws and laid his teeth on me (not a bite, but I knew his teeth were there). And then he did it again. Doesn't seem like playing and his tail was doing the whippy thing.

Any cat psychologists out there? Susie's been trying to find info but has gotten the sage advice to consult an expert. We're in Egypt, there's no such thing here. He's a sweet cat, but someone is going to get hurt if she can't figure out how to turn him around.

Off the cat topic, it hit me yesterday that we are packing out in two weeks and flying out in a month. Aaaaghhh. It always seems like I have more time than I actually do. I've been puttering around doing fun things I want to do and ignoring the have-tos like insurance inventory.

One thing on my checklist is getting backings sewn up for two charity quilts I'm mailing off to Bonnie, plus I'd love to get a backing pieced for my wordy queen-sized bed quilt top that she's going to do fabulous longarm machine quilting on. I'm using the batiks I don't care for as much for the backing on the latter.

I was telling Cher that I'm challenged by cutting straight lines. I really am. Trying to get these large pieces of fabric sewn together for backings is just nightmarish. That's why I've gone the wonky path. So while some of you are feeling challenged loosening up your style, I'm nearly in tears trying to be precise. Oh, the irony.

Yesterday was the first meeting of the Quilters in DeNile after our summer break. Not everyone is back in town yet, but it was good to catch up with each other and share new books. Everyone seems to be tempting me with Halloween fabric. First Finn with the witches and skulls and then someone at quilting had discovered some great vultures on purple. I'm trying to hold off until I'm actually back in the states.

Some fun links for ya'all: Pat Sloan has an interesting series of posts in her blog about putting words on quilts and how to choose them. (Well, and how to applique them - but ya'all don't need that part, right?) Check out the gallery of quilts with words. I see Brigitte's work in there. She's a German quilter who has worked with the freepieced letters. I've been trying to convince her to start a blog. Brigitte's a bit nervous about her English, but I told her that she speaks quilts, and that's all that's necessary.

Cat lover Nancy made a great quilt with a bright cat fabric and one word ala the penguin quilt I made the other day. Mismatched Katie has done some wonderful Xs and Os. The Os are rounder than mine and wonkier and truly fabulous.

On a Bag, In a Box

What could be better than sleeping on a bag or sleeping in a box? Sleeping on a bag in a box. Sounds like a Dr Seuss story.

Notice all those little bite marks on the flaps of the box. Pokey loves to chew boxes. At least curled up like this, she doesn't have to stretch far to get a snack...

Today is the day that I finally get to dismantle the kitty charity box playground. It's been hard to keep track of what's in the "giveaway" pile and what's mine, but the items in the middle should be "theirs" at least until we hit the plastic containers full of scraps - mine, mine, mine.

Last night my copy of "Collaborative Quilting" by Marston and Moran arrived. Finally. Hmm, what to think. Gotta say, I don't buy into the "black and white fabrics give your eyes a place to rest" theory. Black would do that. A nice solid. Black and white just contributes to the busy-ness. Really wish they had shown the quilts on nice white pages instead of the strong colors - think that contributed to making my eyes hurt. It is a fun book tho and I do recommend it.

My sweetie was home sick yesterday. In the afternoon we watched "Notorious" - the Alfred Hitchcock movie with my beloved Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman - and I worked on my Halloween thready - it's just about finished so I'll be able to get it framed before we go. This project had stalled out because I wanted to couch more yarn on it and I just didn't have enough in Halloween colors. I still didn't get a really good orange that I liked, but I made do. I'll show you the pic when it's finished. [thready = a piece of fabric or canvas completely covered in stitches]