Bits and bobs about sewing and quilting

This blog post is about the pieces part of my blog name. I am a quilter. That means that I take large pieces of fabric, cut them up and sew them back together again in wonderful ways.

 I just finished the work on my youngest daughter, Katrina and her  husband Paul's quilt. At home I will have to quilt it (which means putting a warm wool middle layer and then a bottom layer of fabric and making lots of little stitches to hold it together.)

Their quilt is based on a wrought iron fence on the Mt of Olives in Jerusalem

 I am currently working on parts of the wedding quilt for my oldest daughter, Janelle,  and her  husband, Laurens. They were married in October and now live in Germany. They asked for a quilt based on the theme of the Navy Pier in Chicago where they spent hours getting to know each other. So this quilt will be very, very colourful because the pier has a lot of colour, along with a lot of blue because of course Lake Michigan is all around.

My friend in Winnipeg asked to see the work that I have done so far on it . I have finished the centre heart and 4 of the pinwheel type circles. I have seven more to go of those, but I did not bring enough fabric this trip. Thse will have dark blue fabric around them, not purple gingham.

Now, I did say that I had not brought enough fabric along but the bazaar does have huge amounts of fabric. However, for quilting I prefer cottons and those are very scarce here. But, I thought that my quilting friends would be intrigued by the fabric salesman who brings the fabric to your door in the back of his truck. Maybe a business idea for some enterprising person in Winnipeg?

I have seen other trucks where the fabric bolts are standing up nice and straight and seem to be organized very well. Of course, at the time I was either zooming by in a car or I did not have my camera with me.

I was out on a walk with my Kurdish flashcards when I spied these future seamstress/tailors. They had a fantastic bag full of little bits of fabric from traditional Kurdish women's clothes. I asked if I could take their photo and they agreed and jumped up after every click to take a look at the photo.

After I took this one then the girl in the pink said, "tawow" (finished) and then went back to the serious business of exploring the fabric.

 This photo is for my friends and family who love second-hand shops. Here is one that comes right to your door.

My friend Sharaban has been a seamstress for 12 years. Her work is to make traditional Kurdish women's clothes. I have written about her in an earlier post because she cut out dresses for my two daughters. One of these dresses sewed up very easily, but the I could not figure out the second one. So I brought it back to Kurdistan for her to help me. She commented," the dress gets to travel all the way to Canada and back to Kurdistan, while I stay here."  I wanted to give her a gift of my creativity so I made her a pin cushion and gadget holder to go beside her sewing machine. Then I filled it with a few things to make sewing easier: a seam ripper, thread snippers and a box of pins. But the thing she got very excited about was a pair of pinking shears. She asked," can I use these when I don't have an overlocker/serger?|" I told her that unfortunately the serger was much better at holding back fraying thread, but the pinking shears (they make a zig zag cut instead of just straight) would do a good job. She immediately began to "pink" some seams in her sister's dress.

On stitching and weaving and sewing..

When I was here in the spring I made a post about signs of quilting (June- "Searching for signs of quilting). On this stint I have continued to look for handwork of any kind and I have found some more. But.. they are still very scarce. I keep thinking that I may find a group of women sitting and stitching together, or a home with a weaving loom or some men carving. But I have not found this at all. I did find some explanation for this on the website of the Kurdish Textile Museum in the capital city, Erbil/Hawler.  (http://www.kurdishtextilemuseum.com  ) 

"While it is good to appreciate the weaving, there is another aspect to highlighting the art from this region. The Kurdish people face the threat their culture may disappear altogether. Iran-Iraq war in Kurdish land, Arabization [moving the Kurdish people out of communities and Arab people in] and Anfal (the genocidal campaign waged against Kurdish people by the ex-Iraqi regime) destroying more than 4,000 Kurdish villages, forcefully resettling nomadic and settled tribes as well as millions of mines planted throughout Kurdistan, banning of agricultural planting and breeding herds, have all contributed to the devastation of this culture and its economy.

This extermination of a way of life continues due to the bombing and shelling that is happening in the border regions from Turkey and Iran. Villagers are leaving the villages as internally displaced persons during the bombing season (from planting to harvest). Many do return to their homes but many give up and leave for good, heading to the larger centres and cities.

But, when we visited the small Christian Assyrian village of Merkagia , near the Turkish border, I spied a tattered patchwork quilt  in an empty house that the female team members were staying in. I grabbed it and asked a neighbour about it. She said that the old women used to make such things, but now everyone wants store bought blankets so no one makes them anymore. Our host, N, overheard our conversation and asked me if I would like such a blanket. He went into his cupboard and brought out a much nicer specimen and offered it to me. I was very excited and gratefully received it. Technically, it is not a quilt, as it only has 2 layers, but I think that it is beautiful.

 The first patchwork blanket that I found

The blanket that I was given by N.

Then, a few days later I spent a week in Ranya. There I had time and quiet to work on my Kurdish. I discovered that my friend Nishtiman has a sister who has been a seamstress for 12 years. Her main income comes from sewing traditional Kurdish dresses. When I said that I had been looking for a way to get a traditional Kurdish dress for my daughter she volunteered to cut out the dresses for me (they do not have patterns, but know how to cut the fabric according to measurements). So I went out to find fabric for two dresses and she cut it out for me one evening. 

Sharaban measuring the main part of the dress.

 Sharaban also makes the informal dresses like she is wearing.

I think that she and other Kurdish tailors and seamstresses are very talented in saving the traditional ways of sewing their traditional clothes. She does use a sewing machine but all cutting is done with a measuring tape and scissors.

Then, a week later I was invited to visit an agricultural exhibition. Most of the exhibitions were of honey, but there was an example of salmon fishery, grains and fertilizers and in one stand a loom was set up with goats hair to weave the traditional fabric for men's suits. The cloth is around 6-7 inches wide and these strips are sewen together to create very traditional suits. He said that they cost $1,200 to buy as they are so labour intensive.

Finally, in a mountain village, Sunneh, that has experienced shelling this summer and fall, I saw an example of a student's handwork. This is an example of the kind of embroidery that has been done in the past. May this kind of learning continue.

PS. To my sewing friends. I will be making a bag for Sharaban to give her on my next trip. However, I would also like to bring her some sort of sewing item that she would be not able to get here. This would have to be something that would continue to be useable (eg. not a cutter and mat as she would not be able to get new blades here.) Any ideas?