Wednesday, October 29, 2008

AFRICAN GALA







They brought some of their wares to sell . The proceeds help their village in Africa







These are some of the quilts in the show made by the African quilters
This was the workshop I took. The teacher was from Africa, but she was born in Enland.
I made one doll in an African theme to use for a draw in my class and one of the african ladies won it. she was thrilled





One of the local quilt shops called Cotton By Post presented an African Gala last week, which I was involved in
The village is small(pop.600) but the enthusiasn is big.It took Suzanne and Garnet Smalley, the owners of the shop 1 1/2 years preparing for this event, including a trip to East Africa, where they met available teachers willing to come to Canada and teach workshops.
I was invited as a Canadian teacher to do a 2 day doll workshop with a Canadian theme.
I also took one of the workshops which was an appliqued wall hanging (2 african women pounding grains for flour) The class was the last one of the week and the teacher had a draw for an african story wallhanging and I WON!!What a treasure.
The wind up was on the Saturday night . All the African teachers were dressed in their native costumes...Beautiful... There was an African Band and African food tasting including goat stew. DH wouldn't try it but I did and it was delicious. It tasted a bit like lamb...African beer and wine was also served.All in all it was a very exciting week to meet these people and to learn a bit about their culture. Last year it was Russia(previous post) and next year it will be Ireland.Enjoy the pictures..