Map of patterns - Llamas, Alpaca and Lily Schlaen

This is Lily Schlaen. Her grandparents were Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe but she was born in Rosario, Argentina, the birthplace of Che Guevera.

When I asked her if she could help with my map of patterns, she told me about the sweet smell of alpaca wool, it's silkiness, the earthy colours which remind her of home and most of all its warmth.

"The poncho reminds me of feeling the bitter sweet cold of Cordoba's winter....my family had a little house in the mountains....a place between the Earth and the Heavens....nights of starred skies, the smell of orange peels burnt by my father at the open fire.....galloping wild on the neighbours horse, getting lost and given a fright by the mountains bulls...., visiting my Ukrainian violin teacher, who danced Russian style while playing franticallly the czardas on top of the kitchen table, high on the sharp vodka..."

Lily is a musician and has begun, 'Orquestra Sin Fronteras,' an orchestra without any barriers where people of all ages, abilities and nationalities come together to create beautiful sounds and a common purpose - a bit like the musical version of this map of patterns. Her orchestra is already booked to play at the Olympics in 2012! You can watch them perform on YouTube.

Although Lily has lived in England for a long time, whenever she feels homesick, her mother sends her a poncho or a jersey so that she can wrap herself in the warmth and smells and of home.

I've sewed a piece of Lily's precious alpaca jersey onto South America.

Amazingly it carries the same pattern as a picture I found of an ancient Peruvian embroidery - a procession of llamas and steps.

Map of patterns - Kangas, Shirley Ming and Barak Obama

Here is Shirley Ming wearing a beautiful kanga, bearing the motto:

UKILIMA NJIANI SHIKA LAKO

"On the mountain path, stay true to your meaning/path"

Kanga cloths are all about sending messages - they are the equivalent of greeting cards but their message goes a little bit beyond the normal meaning because they incorporate visual imagery and symbols and come alive when they are worn on the body.

I think you can see in Shirleys kanga that the soft, harmonious colours and the blossoming flowers offer happiness to those who follow the message and stay true to their own path in life.

Shirley is very attached to her kanga and I could never have cut it up to use on my map, so I found another on the internet. It commemorates the election of Barak Obama and celebrates this new bond between Africa and America. It's motto reads:

UPENDO NA AMANI AMETUJALIA MUNGA

"God has blessed us with peace and love"

HONGERA BARAK OBAMA

"Good Luck Barak Obama"

Kangas originated on the coast of East Africa in the mid 19th century and on my map I have used my kanga to make the island of Madagascar - you can just see Barak Obamas face peeping out surrounded by black spots.

The spots on the kanga give a clue to its origin: in the beginning kangas were made from
a bolt of spotty handerchief cloth from which single handerkerchiefs were cut off and sold:
ingenious women bought the cloth in lengths of 6 handkerchiefs, then cut the six into two lengths of three, and sewed these together along one side to make 3-by-2 sheet; or bought different kinds of kerchiefs and sewed them back together to make their own unique designs.

The new design was called "leso" after the kerchief squares that had originally been brought to Africa by Portuguese traders. The leso quickly became popular than the other kind of patterned cloth available. Before long, enterprising coastal shopkeepers sent away for special designs, printed like the six-together leso pieces, but as a single unit of cloth.

They are named "Kanga" after the noisy, spotty guinea-fowl bird. Although the kanga design might differ slightly, a typical kanga in East Africa consists of a wider border (Swahili: pindo), the central motif (Swahili: mji), and the writing (Swahili: ujumbe or jina).

These cloths play a very special role in people’s lives, both functional and symbolic, from birth, through courtship and marriage , to old age and death. There is a kanga for every occasion and to convey every shade of meaning.

Wrong side sewing

Here is some sewing I am doing at the moment, inspired by ragbooks and found embroidery.

I am very excited about sewing on one side and then being surprised by what is going on, on the other side when I turn it over.

Sewing simultaneously like this becomes quite an intricate and complex balancing act: the stitch has a prescence on both sides of the cloth - a bit like when a dream comes back vividly to you in the middle of your waking life and penetrates your world suddenly and without any warning - there are several realities existing at the same moment and you're not quite sure which one to follow....

The first two pieces I made for two young boys who died in Gaza during the fighting in 2008. I found this picture of them in the paper - their dead bodies were being carried away by mortuary workers. I studied the details of their clothes and shoes for clues about who they were, but I couldn't find out any more about them - not even their names. They were very beautiful and precious and reminded me of my own boys. I made this so that I wouldn't ever forget them. There is no wrong side or right side.