Marie Watt...

Marie Watt pictured second from right.

What a wonderful experience we had on a Saturday morning in late September. Personally, I could have stayed  all day, stitching away.... It was so liberating not having to be so precise in what we were doing...back to being a "koutourou" girl !....by the way, the Cypriots in the group, of both Greek and Turkish backgrounds, worked out that this word is truely Cypriot and not from either mainland Greek or Turkish..and means bodgey,random, ad hoc or not so good.
Artist Marie Watt believes that every persons stitch is like a fingerprint and so travels the world setting up sewing circles for some of her works.

I was thrilled to be given Marie's book, a first comprehensive view of her work covering from the mid 1990's till present...

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Center section where jingles will be attatched...this backing is made from old army blankets.

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Maro...another daft photo...oh well !!!

Maro's section...just had to get rid of the basting stitches too...

Stitches fingerprints...

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Froso Mavrou of Creative Clothing etc.

Our first male to join the group...yes, we had 5 join in the stitching...

Nonie and Turkish Cypriot Paper Artist Inci Kansu who makes her own papers from scratch...http://www.incikansu.info/

Nonie's section of work, a different twist on assemblying the pieces in a zig zag stitch...

Jingles: made from tobacco container tops and then rolled into a cone.

Marie's latest work ,again, uses old woollen blankets ..(See photos of her previous works here http://pdxcontemporaryart.com/watt#o  ).This piece, from what I understood, will represent the Native American  custom for women to incorporate jingles on their jingle dresses:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingle_dress. From what Marie told us the women have to "earn" jingles before they sew them on to their costumes. Each jingle has a wish written inside and if a particular jingle falls off their costume during the jingle pow wow dance  ,then, that wish comes true...We all got to write our wishes in the jingles which are to be sewn on the middle section of the piece. Marie is unsure as to how the piece will look when finished or when it will be finished...we know what this is all about !!! Depending on when it is, it will be exhibited in Denver , Insights in Santa Fe or at UC Davis Art Museum.
If you would like to read a local article on Marie, please click on the link below...Maro

http://cyprus-mail.com/2013/10/10/half-cowboy-half-indian/

Ps:
We were really lucky with the weather too as it was only in the low 30's and not too muggy in the morning...don't think it would have been too pleasant touching all that wool if it had been any hotter !!
Thank you to all involved setting up this event , a truely memorable experience...

Cyprus cat enjoying the event too...in true Cyprus fashion !