Sue Benner Workshop

Where has October gone? I have been on the road much of the month, and it feels as though time evaporates when that happens. But they have been happy days. First I drove down to Sisters, Oregon with my friend Joan Darling, to attend a five-day workshop with Sue Benner. The class was called Driven to Abstraction, and working from our own images, we were encouraged to interpret it abstractly, using a variety of techniques. The class was rich in information - enough to work with for months to come. I especially liked the notion of doint "studies' - something like journal quilts - to see how various ideas work out. Here are some photos of some of my work, and that of other workshop participants:

I worked from a photo I'd taken when on Saltspring Island last summer - two trees leaning against one another. First I interpreted the photo using unrealistic colours, and simplified lines. Then I looked at the lines alone - a graphic interpretation of the photo. The third study was more realistic in colour, but simplified in line - almost a combination of the first and the second studies. Next was a study broken up into sections by a single tree shape. Then a close-up of one element of the design. I fell most compelled by the third of these, but would like to push these ideas further, before committing to a larger piece

A study of poppies, by another student, Sara.

Karen's studies.

And one of a tropical flowers by Laura.

And lastly, Debra's studies.

If you ever have the opportunity to take a workshop with Sue Benner, I would highly recommend it. She was incredibly generous with her knowledge and experience. And as with many workshops, the things you learn are so often above and beyond the specified subject matter. And to have five days to work on this, uninterupted, was heavenly.

Tanglebank continued

I thought you might enjoy a couple more photos from Tanglebank. There was this lovely little spot called "Meet and Greet", a space provided so that visitors could spend a little time talking to their favourite designers. But the joy of it was that more often is turned out to be a place where the designers themselves could get together for a bit of a visit. So here I am with Joan Darling (my faithful "Worker-Bee"), Cheryl Wall of Country Quilts, and Sue Jensen of Quilted Escapes, enjoying the sunshine and a bit of a chat.
Three of us gave mini-seminars on various techniques. In this case, I am giving a demo on how to make the borders incorporated into my newest design, Geckos in My Garden.

And here is an alternate setting and fabric choice for this pattern. In this case I have used fabrics generously provided to me by Northcott Fabrics - all part of a stunning new fabric line created by Quilt Poetry's Jane Spolar. I think I like this setting even better than the first setting, and now I'm itching to make it up in African Fabrics combined with batiks.

Quilts at Tanglebank

This last Saturday saw Kitambaa Designs at Tanglebank Garden Centre, in Abbotsford. I joined three other designers - Sue Jensen of Quilted Escapes, Dougal Walker of The Freckles Collection and Cheryl Wall of Country Quilts - in exhibiting our quilts and selling our patterns. It was a perfect day - a sunny day sandwiched between two rainy days - and lots of people took advantage of this and joined us for a day filled with demonstrations, book-signings by Cheryl, and wandering around the lovely gardens, where quilts hung on fences, between trees and in the greenhouse.
One of the highlights of the day was viewing the challenge quilts, one designed by each of the four designers. We all started with the same fabrics, but the quilts themselves were quite different from one another. (I wonder if you can guess which was mine???)

Heather from Quilter's Connection was there too, signing up new subscriptions and renewing others, for what is the only non-CQA Canadian quilting publication. For those of you who still aren't subscribers, I would heartily encourage you to take out a subscription, in support for this new magazine.

And yes, this is my challenge quilt, entitled Geckos in My Garden. I had quilt kits for this design on sale at the Show, and still have a few left over, if you're interested. It includes all the fabric required for the quilt top and binding, and is $59. It measures 40" X 55". Let me know by email if you're interested in obtaining one for yourself, and I'll put one in the post to you.

So thank you to all of you who came out for this event. It was great to see many old friends as well as to make new ones.

A Colour-full Summer

The warm, bright, colour-full days of summer are passing so quickly. Here it is the middle of August, and I haven't accomplished nearly half of the things I had on my summer "to-do" list. But I have enjoyed myself taking a few mini-holidays. I'm just back home from a trip down Vancouver Island and taking the ferry across to Saltspring Island, then wending my way home through Victoria, Chemainus and Nanaimo - ending with a short trip over to Hornby Island before coming home to rest. Of course it wouldn't be a holiday without checking into fabric shops along the way, and I was delighted to top up my Kaffe Fassett stash at Stitches Quilt Shop on Saltspring

Island, all ready for the next Kaffe-inspired quilt project. Aren't they incredible? I resisted the many fabulous yarns - have resolved not to buy any more of them until I've knit up the yarn I have into warm and cosy (and colourful) socks. I visited the Saturday craft market where there were oodles of tempting wares, from pottery to wild flower filled earrings.

Then on the way home up-island, had a delicious pub lunch at the Crow and Gate in Cedar, where the perennial border was at its finest. This is just a taste of the joys of summer I've been enjoying, along with having time to complete the quilt top
for my daughter and new son-in-laws quilt, and to begin designing some new patterns. Today we booked our return flights to Uganda - Joan and I will be leaving Vancouver on December 28th, and I know the fall will pass just as quickly as the summer, and that before we know it, we'll be winging our way back to the Bitengye Designers. The workshop is still in the planning stages, but I will be sure to let you know some more of the specifics before we leave. In the meantime, I hope each of you is enjoying these last days of summer wherever you are.

Update on the Bitengye Designers

It is now just over 4 months since we returned from Uganda, and thoughts of the Bitengye Designers and the widows and their families are never very far from our minds. We're already thinking about what new projects or designs we will teach the women when we return again in January. Our present plan is to meet with Alice for at least a week before all the other women arrive, so that we can teach her these new things. Then she will teach the other women, with our support, for the workshop itself. But what has happened since we left? Well, we've had 2 large shipments of items, and sales for most of these

is going very well. We now have people in five different provinces helping us sell what they make. Alice has the roof on her school. And at least one of the tourist craft shops in Kampala at which we left their products has sold out of them. We are gradually handing over more of the management of the orders to Alice, with Nightingale (you may remember that she was our wonderful translator this year) and Perez, helping Alice understand and reply to the emails we send to her. In addition to the already sponsored secondary school students we have, we've begun a scholarship to Alice's sewing

school. The first student started in the spring, and now a group of quilters in Whistler has made a second scholarship available. (It cost about $150 for a year's tuition.) We have had two Singer Featherweight sewing machines donated to Alice, and will arrange for these to be set up with solar power when we are next in Uganda. And we have received donations of 5 more sewing machines for next year's project. We are investigating possible new crafts to teach the women, and hopefully a few new women, and will be trying to practice one or two over the summer ourselves, in order to be ready to teach others. A group of quilters in Victoria is busy working on the next raffle quilt, and framed batiks will soon be available for purchase. Thank you to all of you who are supporting this very small grass-roots project. As most of you know, we raise all our own funds to carry on with this, and couldn't do it without the help of so many of you. So, many, many thanks to each and every one of you.

African Jigsaw

This spring saw a marvellous collaboration between Alice, the Coordinator of the Bitengye Designers, and the Victoria Children's Choir. Word reached Eric Allen that Kitambaa was working with this amazing group of women, and he thought how wonderful it would be if the choristers not only sang about Africa, in their performance, African Jigsaw, but also wore shirts made by women in Africa. After some discussions around style and colour, he

entrusted the undertaking to Alice and the Bitengye Designers. We transported the colourful shirts back to Canada with us in March, and now here are some photos of the Victoria Children's Choir performing in their Uganda-made garments. What a sight they must have

been! The choir was delighted with the shirts, and with the overall impact of seeing all the children dressed in them while they performed. And Alice, who did most of the sewing, was equally delighted that the funds from this one project, would pay almost half of the amount she needed to put a roof on her new sewing school.
One postscript to this story - a teacher who was in the audience at the performance had been staying at Canada House in Uganda, and had seen them. But she didn't put two and two together until she saw African Jigsaw and recognized them from her time there. It's a small world indeed!

A Wedding in the Family

There are some of you who are wondering if I've given up on blogging, or worse yet, disappeared from Kitambaa and the quilting world. Let me assure you that it was only a temporary absence, while we prepared for and then celebrated the wedding of my daughter Emily, to Michael Beausoleil. (I had determined that I would never write on this blog about anything but quilting and the Bitengye women in Uganda, but this is an exception that I hope you will allow.) It was a wonderful wedding, almost magical. Someone said it was Narnia-like, or Tolkein-esque. The Woodland Gardens where the ceremony and reception were held was absolutely perfect. We hung flowers from the trees and filled a medley of other vases with more wild flowers and peonies and roses. Emily looked stunning in her dreamed-for Art Deco style silk dress, and she and Michael beamed through the whole thing.

After the ceremony itself, the words of which brought tears to many of us, there was croquet on the lawn, and bocce, and a photo booth set-up where many chose to have their portraits taken. My son Ben and his Emily are pictured here in the booth. There was a fabulous meal, with salmon cooked on cedar planks by one family friend, and served by the marvellous ladies of my Book Club. Followed by dancing, surrounded by paper lanterns and flowers, and where the old folks got out first to show them how it's done. All in all, it was marvellous, and yes, magical, a family celebration we will remember for a long time to come. And I hope that those of you who follow this blog, will accept this as my humble apology for not staying in touch more regularly over the last month. Some things take precedence, and this, for sure, was one of them. Thank you for the patience of those of you who have waited longer than you should have had to for responses to your emails, and apologies to those of you whose orders took longer than I would have wished to fill. I am back in the saddle now, smiling quietly to myself from time to time, and once again dreaming of new quilts and new designs and new fabrics to cut apart and sew together once again.