Cars, passports, viruses and babies

It has been a strange week. We have had car troubles - no, we do not own a car - or at least, we thought we didn't. It seems that unfortunately we do. The gentleman who bought our car a year ago had put plates on his car from another vehicle he owned so he could drive it, but never changed the registration and customs clearances into his name. We had done our paperwork, and had given it to him in the approved way complete with two letters - one to the Ministry seeking permission to sell, and one receiving permission from them to sell the car. A month ago we heard through the grapevine that he was selling the vehicle, and then he left town. Then we received a letter telling us the registration was overdue and the story slowly emerged.

Luckily the car had not been sold and will be returned to us. We will sell it. This is a hassle we do not need at the beginning of Summer when everyone is leaving town.

The air conditioner in the beautiful round room on the roof with the big table tennis table for pinning quilts had died about six weeks ago. We were assured that it needed a new compressor and that it had to be ordered from Outside Egypt. This seemed extraordinary to me. There is an air conditioner hanging off almost every room of about a fifth of the buildings in Cairo - and the rest would have them but cannot afford them. You would think that with this meaning that about four million people have more than one air conditioner there would be a generous supply of spare parts from the biggest brand in town. You would be wrong. They had to order it - it took four weeks.

They came to put it in. Men worked in the blazing heat of the roof for several hours over an even hotter metal box, then they went away. I breathed a sigh of relief, waited an hour, scooped up Hashim and his batting and back and headed for the room. It was like an oven and the air con was clearly not working. I walked out to check. The 'box' outside was open and spilling bits and pieces around an area of about nine square metres.

I rang to see what was wrong. They needed gas. They hadn't brought it. They would come back tomorrow. I started to mutter about the lack of foresight that does not assume that gas might be needed when it clearly was, but gave up. Their ways, not mine. That was hard to maintain as I needed the room and would have dripped all over anything I tried to work on in it at more than forty degrees - inside. I insisted it be done that day. I don't often throw tantrums, but this was close.

It was fixed and worked for two days. Then it died again. The short story is that it is working again now, but I am starting to wonder about the wisdom of staying through summer to work.

Then I put in an application for a new passport - and I was refused. My diplomatic passport is full. My ordinary passport has expired and I let it die as there seemed no point in paying for a passport when I do not need it. I have to enter and leave Egypt on the passport that has my residence visa in it. My passport has been reaching the saturation point over the last few months, and I have not had a single block of the three weeks I needed to get a new one as diplomatic passports cannot be issued at the post. Apparently my birth certification submitted with the original passport (so many years ago that I hate to remember) has triggered an alert. There was a rather unpleasant mention of a 'backwash' and my lovely son has saved the day by digging out the original version from family files in Canberra.

Then - worst of all - I had a couple of reports of a virus on my website (not this blog). I whipped the signature off my emails, and warned my lists, but was horrified to think that I might be infecting people. It is now sorted out - a 'malicious' text was removed by my server after diligent work by my lovely webmaster. It is now safe - but it gave me that awful sick feeling you get when something you care about is violated.

This has been the fortnight of baby quilts. I have rattled off two quick quilts in the interims between bits of Hashim and waiting for fabrics to finish him.

This one is a gift for little Mohamed - the son of our chef, Ahmed. Mohamed was born just after Ahmed started work with us and I didn't make a quilt - I was incredibly busy, and did not feel I knew Ahmed well enough. Since then I have felt a bit guilty that I did not make one - so a fabric covered in cats triggered this quilt. Little Mohamed adores cats. The pattern is a brilliant pattern by Fran Williams and I have made it many times.

This Jewel Box is a bright and pretty pattern I also make fairly regularly as a gift. It is also quick and easy. I made this for a new baby born a bit early to one of my lovely drivers, Mohamed. Or perhaps I should say - to his wife. Adam is Egyptian and I thought that if I played a little with the placing of the colours of the triangles I could almost see three dimensional pyramids. They might never notice, but I liked knowing they were there.

You do not give gifts to local babies before they are born. I think there is a strong level of superstition that somehow you will ill-wish a baby if you do. Even in the first week celebrating is very low key. However at one week there is a Sebua - a huge celebration. A lamb is sacrificed and cooked with rice and served to anyone who comes - and people bring gifts to the baby. I have always felt that the last thing I would need to organise one week after the birth of my first baby is a huge party with masses of food to be prepared. Mohamed obviously felt this too as he has decided his wife is too tired and he is holding the Sebua a week later. From this point the baby is recognised. I handed over the quilt after the one-week stage when I lent him my little snappy camera - as it seemed so sad not to be able to record a new baby. The stammering and overwhelmed reaction on the phone (gifts in Egypt are NEVER opened in front of you) was delightful and reminded me of why I still give quilts as gifts.

I am feeling flat - just too many complex problems for one week - but - Hashim is almost finished. I have just the border to quilt, then bindings and he is done. I might put up some quilting details - so watch this space. I will not post the whole finished image as I am afraid of finding myself disqualified from competition because the image is deemed 'published'.

It is late and I am weary.

Hashim

I have had several very rude comments after I sent an email to a list saying I had 'a man half finished on a piece of cloth upstairs' and bemoaning the fact that I needed fabric to finish him.

Well, I decided to clean up my stash since I couldn't work without that particular shade of high value purple. In the process, tucked between dark greens I found a piece - not identical to the other, but close enough to work. I have no idea what it was doing in the 'dark green' basket. It all felt a bit too much like 'scarlet ribbons' for my liking as I had just felt so desperate. I thought my order for fabric had gone missing and have been gnashing my teeth and metaphorically hitting my head on walls for days - so I am not going to enquire too hard about just how this happened.

Well - he is almost done. I have taken some shots. There will be a lot of quilting and a narrow lighter strip inside the very dark side so it will not look exactly like that when finished.

Trust me.

Stars in Alignment

Something seems to be working well for us at the moment.

Today is my mother's birthday. She is not young - up there in her eighties but bright and sharp and enjoying life - and she cruises the internet, occasionally even doing a project for me. My father's was a couple of weeks back. They have not been together for a long time but he is also well and happy. I have great genes.

Today my youngest daughter (I have three daughters and a son) won a prize which had her scrambling for tickets to Quito in Ecuador in two weeks. There she will pick up her free Peregrine cruise of the Galapagos Islands. I have threatened to buy her the "Nice Boobies" t-shirt from Threadless, but she is resisting. I think I do not blame her.

Today my second daughter, in the process of moving her family to Canberra to join us all again, had a telephone interview for a job she would very much like to get. Before the day ended they had rung to say they will fly her to Canberra and would like to meet her. This means, to me, that she is shortlisted. Better still, it means that her qualifications are right up there with the others in the race for positions in Canberra, so if she does not get this one there will be others.

I have also been waiting for an order of fabric, carefully ordered from the States almost nine weeks ago and anxiously awaited. I thought it would be here when I returned from Spain and Turkey - but it wasn't . Then I thought it would surely be here when I returned from Dubai - but it wasn't. I left for Kuwait with that nagging drop in the pit of my stomach, having talked to the company. We had all generally agreed that it was probably gone. It turned up two days ago. There is still a bit of time to go with customs clearances to do, but I have felt really desperate about this - I have elected to stay in Cairo through the heat of Summer, when I will actually have some time to work - and thought I would not have the fabric I needed to do the work.

And finally and thrillingly , the long and complex case my husband has been working on in Sudan is over and went well. He is thinner, but mutters that he needed to be. It is not something I can talk about, but I am pleased. It is nice to be home, and to have him home too.

Today I went into one of the areas of Cairo that I tend to drift to when I want plastics. It is a street market area which has lots of food and vegetable stall tucked between tall buildings which afford some shadow except when the sun is directly overhead. It has shops too, tucked into the ground floors of the buildings and all are small, and most sell cheap plastics. I like the area as it is full of people and always interesting.

I was with a driver I really like. My young drivers have, in many ways become my best friends. They are my window on the way young Cairenes think. As we travel we talk, and I really enjoy the frequently philosophical conversations.

On the way today we saw a taxi carefully pull level with another cab. The driver dropped back just a tad, then his hand (and a large lump of his body) came out of his window, and he opened the back door of the other cab (which was not quite latched), then slammed it. All of this happened while the cabs were moving, not fast, but steadily. The surprised passenger in the back of the cab waved her thanks, as did the driver, and the other car accelerated off.

Then a man walked along the path beside us and stepped out in front of us to cross. We stopped. He was carrying a shop mannequin, without her arms. Perhaps this was why he had her in a grip that curled under her crutch with one hand and with his palm spread on her bottom. The other arm held her firmly around the waist. My friend and driver muttered that he would have to marry her now, as no-one else would, and we laughed, as did many others watching.

Half a block further a man fell off his bike. He was not hurt - he stood and brushed himself off, but two drivers were out of their cars and helping to hand him things that rolled from the baskets slung on his bicycle.

I like Cairo. I struggled with the traffic at first - especially while I still had a car. It is irreverent traffic. I watch friends keep up constant running commentaries along the lines of "Look at that idiot ... what does he think he is doing... why can't they just stay in one lane??" I have almost decided that to cope with Cairo you have to learn to accept that the traffic will never behave as you would expect it to in your own country. Accepting that a different and entirely 'organic' (my Brother's term but I really like it) system can also work is almost essential to loving this city.

We parked. We had driven past a few shops that seemed to have something like the plastic rectangular 'baskets' that I was looking for and which I use to store fabric. Once we walked back we found that what looked similar when stacked was actually a pile of drying racks.

Then came the incident that managed to caste a pall over my marvelous day. Do not read on if stories about animals might upset you - as it upset me.

We passed a woman with an enchanting small desert hedgehog in a cage. It was young and lithe and climbed the bars of the bird cage and clung, then dropped down to find another side and repeat the exercise. There was a good amount of fresh vegetables and food in the bottom and fresh water, so I assumed it was a pet, then wondered if it was for sale as this was a market. I had the sudden idea of buying it and releasing it into my garden.

My friend spoke to her. He talked at length and looked rattled - and seemed to be arguing. Mind you, Arabic frequently sounds like arguing and I often ask a driver what is wrong, when he has just been having a discussion. He turned abruptly and started to walk on. I asked what she had said and he said "It is not for sale." I asked what was wrong.

He shook his head. "I don't believe in these things." I pressed him. I wish I hadn't.

"Her sister is very sick. She says if she kills this animal her sister will get better." He was visibly upset. I asked if he thought she would sell it to me if I was very generous with money. He answered very slowly and thoughtfully.

"What is the point? She will take your money and find another of these animals. Then she will kill that one. Either way one will die. When someone you love is sick, then you will try anything, and believe in anything. If you take this animal and she cannot find another one and then her sister dies she will always believe that her sister died because she failed. Then she will live with guilt and despair."

He was so right that I was silenced. We saw her again, still looking for someone to kill the hedgehog for her, and I am still struggling with the fact that I did not try harder to save it.

The Eyeline, for tACTile

I don't often post stuff about my quilting on this blog - but people were interested last time so this is a body of work made last year. It was an odd time for me and difficult. Kim, my daughter, was badly burned in an accident at her home, and rushed by air ambulance to Sydney. I flew back, but not drama removes deadlines and I had to make a body of work for an exhibition. I had originally planned three pieces for the allocated space, and had made two of them. I did not like what I had made.

With my lovely daughter hurt everything went black and white. It is interesting the way this happens - you need a near-tragedy to realise how unimportant all the other stuff is. I took my work back to the bones in many ways for this. It is unusually personal and I must admit, seeing it hung together was an unpleasant experience, like walking naked through a room full of men in suits. It also took me back to a period in my life that I woudl hate to repeat, so I cannot decide if I like the work or not.

I had to make a body of work for the tACTile group of which I am a member. We all originally - and the others still - live in Canberra in the ACT, hence the capitalisation of the state in our name.

The task was to take a line at 1.5 metres above ground level through all the work (the Eyeline) - from the last person's to the next and through your own. It could do whatever you wished inside the work, but had to emerge at the same point. Four small - tiny - square quilts formed a 'collaborative' linking the works like punctuation marks. I forgot to photograph these and am annoyed as mine are small and detailed.

I was limited in space as I moved from one hospital hostel to another. Then Bob had his hip operation. I stayed with a good friend for a week. A relative lent me a flat for a week so I moved to that. Bob went into a repatriation clinic for his hip so I moved in with him to help. I had seven moves in six weeks and made this body of work in the process. Bernina (my beloved company) lent me a machine. I had a plastic bag with a few key fabrics and homespuns - plain cottons in one colour only. I had minimal working space. These were the result.

I include the formal blurb to avoid rewriting!

LIFE LINE

JENNY BOWKER

I wanted to make a series of quilts based on events in my life, and I wanted them to feel thoughtful and autobiographical. I was travelling at the time these had to be made, and in a way this affected several factors. The quilts had to be small so that they could be worked in any location. I also needed to carry minimal fabric and a limited palette helped to hold very different elements together and carry through a story line as well as the Eyeline.

I apologise for the photographs. We have had professional ones taken but I don't yet have copies of these. I took quick snaps at the AQC in Melbourne where the work was first hung.
1 Shimmer - the first seven years

Gold threads on this piece are left hanging loose - hence the name. Leaves stood for passing days, with some stronger in my memory than others, but most pale against the background like most days of childhood.

2 Flowering - puberty and partners

Not a well ordered piece - it wan an untidy time for me!

3 My Cup Runneth Over - my beautiful children

No particular link as one bowl to one child. They are all wonderful, and all different and I love them very very much. They are the things I will leave behind me and I am so proud of each one.

In this quilt (and I did not even take photos of each quilt, just details) the background colour is light, like the second photo.

4 Long Cold Winter - the difficult years

Sorry - no individual detail - but look at the top photo for the tree losing its leaves.

Divorce and economic hardship.

5 Patterns Sliding through My Fingers - the making of work and creativity

6 The Perfect Pattern – I have always loved this pattern. While I am aware it looks like a memorial I have always loved the way the crosses fit together like jigsaw pieces so perfectly, complex, but simple at the same time. I have had good and bad times, times which are mundane and times which are spectacular. All of them lock together to make me what I am, and there is not one thing that I would change.

I first found this pattern in the halo of a saint on an icon in the church of Shepherds' Fields in Bethlehem. I drew it, with two there black and white cross patterns, into a notebook. I have used it often - and have seen work by other quitl artist's, notably Michael James, who use the same pattern. I was miffed at first as I thought I had discovered it, then realised that it was never mine to begin with and just accepted that many will use it. It strip pieces easily as each line is the same, short dark, short light, long dark, short light short dark, long light and so on. So you make one great slab, and slice it it, shuffling the strips along and dropping beginning bits onto the ends at will. It is a tad more complicated though when changing colours.

Snippets – four tiny quilts for some of the personal symbols I used.

No photos - and I did some interesting ones too! If I ever see them up again I will take some better shots.

I welcome comments, as usual.

My Chessboard

I have seen Pharaonic chessboards in the Khan Al Khalili. They are interesting - either chunky simplistic ones in camel bone and stained camel bone, or small detailed ones in pharaonic black and gold and made in China - but with very small pieces and spindly and fragile in appearance.

I had considered buying one at one stage and priced one of the better camel bone options.

That stopped me cold as they were hundreds of dollars. Admittedly this was the first option price and open to a very great deal of negotiation.

I have also been worried that I have been here too long as the touristic souvenir sphinxes and figures are starting to look attractive. It is odd that when we have seen something again and again in all sorts of contexts, even good images start to be kitsch - like the Mona Lisa.

Anyway - I decided to use the figures to make my own chess set - with scarabs for pawns, one side black and one side coloured. I have rooks which are pyramids, a king and a queen, and Bastet, the cat figure for bishops. I struck out with the knights a little. I considered camels, but they didn't really look right with Pharaonic figures. There are no horses in ancient Egyptian imagery. I compromised in the end, with canopic jars with animal heads on the black side, and sphinxes on the coloured side.

I am very happy with it - but the photography was rough and a little awkward. Have a look.