KTAA 14th Annual Exhibtion

This is the 14th year of the Kuwait textile arts  group exhibition and  what an incredible journey it was. I had exhibited in  all the last thirteen years , but this year may be  my least participation thanks to a haunting  frozen shoulder, which tormented me for the whole year.Few small pieces made at the last moment may not be great but it just made me feel I can still quilt.

Leaves from trees picked around Kuwait are painted with Fabric paint, impression taken on fabric, cut and appliqued. An effort to save the real leaves impression as greenery is rare in Kuwait

Fusible Applique-Basics QAl

This method is also known as Raw edge Appliqué. In this method top fabric   is fused to the base fabric. A fusible web binds both the  top and base fabric by ironing. once the design is traced on the fusible web, cut it to the exact shape, iron it on to the chosen fabric and  feel off the  backing paper exposing the glue, iron it on to the base fabric.

Tools

My favorite  brand of fusible web is Heat N Bond available in quilt shops. This has a paper backing and easy to use.You can also buy the fusible web in roles without paper backing or in meters. The ones without backing can be used by placing them in between baking parchment. If you cannot get this webbing you can use a fabric glue or glue stick which may not be perfect but can work. A special iron is another added tool but normal iron can do the same task.

Chose a design.

Choose a design and convert it  to line drawing.Number each of the pieces starting from outer edge to inner edge or left to right or vise versa.

Using a fabric carbon trace the pattern to the base fabric.You can use a fabric pencil to strengthen the lines.

Now make a reverse copy of the pattern  and trace it to the dull side of fusible web. Dull side is the paper side and the back of it is the fusible side with glue.

Choose your fabrics for appliqué

Cut out the shapes from the  traced  design on fusible web and iron it on to the  back side of the selected fabric.  Cut out all the  fused shapes with one side exact and other side a scant 1/4 inch eye measurement. The idea is to fit each piece like jigsaw puzzle.

Remove the backing paper, arrange all the pieces to recreate the design  on the base fabric and iron it on.

 Stitch around all the edges with straight stitch. If you don’t like the raw edge look you can statin stitch around the edges.Once the process of fusing and stitching is finished thread painting it with matching  thread is an option

Join the finished block to other pieces to create a table mat. Back it with batting and back fabric and quilt as desired.Bind with black fabric.

Applique Place Mats

Applique  Place Mats

Level-Beginner to intermediate

 

Reverse appliqué as the name suggests is stitching from the reverse side. This method allows you to add different color patches to your design with very little effort. In this technique, two or more fabrics are layered and stitched together, then sections of the fabric are cut away to reveal the color’s beneath, creating an original design with all colors.

Copy the  given design on a square of a thin muslin 8×7 inches  fabric or wash away stabilizer. It is important to see through the design.

Pin the copied design face up  on  the back of  a square of black fabric lying  face down.mark the center, trim it to 8×7 inches.Pin on the side and secure it.

Choose one red  and one white fabric and two green fabrics for the Strawberry.Green shaded 3.5×4.5 inches (for the stem),green dark-5×4.5 inches (for leaves),red-5×5 inches (for strawberry),white 5×5 inches (for spots) These measurements are only for connivence  and can be changed for  personal comfort level and the idea is to use  just enough fabric to cover the required part of the design but not too little as it will leave a gaping hole, too  big will make the trimming harder.

1. Take the green fabric and carefully place it under the  stabilizer  covering the stem part of the strawberry, and face down on the black fabric.
2. Place the red fabric on top of the green face down and under the strawberry part of the design, Place the white fabric on top of the red fabric face down.
3. Now carefully lay the green-2 fabric under the stabilizer face down  arranging it to cover the leaf part of the design.

1. 

1. Pin it securing all the layers. Now the design is right side up and all the layers of fabric are right side down facing the opposite way.
2. Insert the free motion feet on your sewing machine, if your machine does not have this facility you can use the straight stitching feet. Put the matching color thread on the bobbin and on top.

1. Keep the traced side of the square facing you under the sewing machine, insert green color thread both in bobbin and on top  and  trace  the lines of the top portion of the strawberry  by straight stitch,now finish the leaves below the same way.Change the thread color  to red and finish  tracing the straw berry.

1. Take it out the machine and turn it around to see all the lines traced on the black fabric.
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1. Now carefully insert the sharp sessions inside the first layer of black fabric, just inside the stitch line and cut away exposing the  green fabric inside.

1. Cut the layers of black and any green remaining from the leaf above to expose the red. Cut away the black fabric to expose the leaf green too.

.Now take it back to the sewing machine and trace the spots on the strawberry by going twice around. Cut away the red fabric to reveal the white spots under.

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1. Set the machine to satin stitch and secure all the  cut edges.Use the free motion feet to make the  vines on the leaf. Trim the extra fabric and stabilizer from the back. Arrange the other pieces as desired and stitch with 1/4 inch seam allowance, press the seams open.

1. 
2. The pieced place mat should measure 19.5x 12.5  at this point.

Place it on a back ground fabric, batting and quilt as desired. Quilt around the strawberry to bring up the design.Bind with black fabric.

Make two mats the same way.

Hope you enjoyed.:)

Portrait with Reverse Applique

Batik Art-Sonali Dharmawardena

Our season  at KTAA kicked  off  on October 16th with a colorful presentation on Batik Art by Sonali Dharmawardena, renowned artist and designer from Sri Lanka.Sonali Dharmawardena is an artist who has worked with various creative mediums such as pottery, jewelry, fine arts in oils, water color and pencil. Today she is a leading fashion designer in her hometown of Colombo, Sri Lanka. She is the current Head of Design at Hands Intimates/Global Intimates (PVt) Ltd and the Director of Creative & Marketing Communication, Impact Solutions, the leading design company in Sri Lanka.She has her own boutique specializing in batik in Colombo Sri Lanka : Simplybatik “Acushla” and her own brand of designer jewelry “Yehali”.

There was a fashion show and talk on the first night and the next day  she went through the whole process of  Batik Art, right from   tracing a design on fabric,applying the bea wax  and dipping it in boiling colors through a computer  presentation and  a few samples.

Sonali is an inspiration to women everywhere but especially to those in her native Sri Lanka who have endured hardship and struggled often being the sole providers for their families

It was  half a day well spent with  the knowledgeable and charming Sonali.

Musings of a ‘Hobby Quilter’.

After 13 long  years of quilting and winning  a few noticeable awards and  exhibits in few worthy places, still I can’t decide if I am a ‘hobby quilter’ or a ‘professional’ one.

May be a hobby one as I have not(yet ) made it into a business. I am not  making the quilts for sale and making money. Though,I am very professional about my classes and take it seriously. Any way  I tried to look up to a definition of ‘hobby’  in the google. What came up is amusing and  fitting too.Hobby is defined as

1.An activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.

2.A migratory Old World falcon (genus Falco) with long narrow wings, catching dragonflies and birds on the wing.

The first one fitted very well as I am quilting in my leisure time and enjoying it.  Second explanation was amusing but fitted well too.  I am Migratory with moving around in different countries. Catching dragon flies and birds on the wing was such a beautiful phrase  which suites who, but an imagination of a quilter who carries the dreams of making beautiful quilts and carries the thoughts of these patterns around like the falcon with long wings.

As the new year ( for a quilter in this part of the world) set in I thought to put some of those ideas I carry in my wings down on the earth.

Foundation paper piecing my true  love is the first thing  I  could think as a starter to make my own pattern into a  quilt wall hanging.

Yo Yo

There are also the Yo yo’s I have stated a while ago which needed to be finished into something.

So I decided to swoop into the ground as, in the last few months  I have flown enough, caught enough fish and it is time to rest and use my catch.

Geyser’s of Yellowstone National Park.

Gods color pallet.  

 Ye  Kaun chitrakaar hai,

Ye Kaun chitrakaar hai

(Who is  the painter,who is the painter, who created this)

  The forgotten lines of a famous  Hindi song sung by Mukesh  glorifying the beauty of nature and wonders about the creativity of the creator of nature , was  coming to my mind again and again as I strolled in this wonder of the world ,the ‘Geyser garden’ which looked like unwashed  color pallet left by god.The scene was unbelievable.

The rest of the group with me where  more interested in  knowing the facts about geysers which goes  as  this.

Geysers are hot springs that erupt periodically. The eruptions is the result of super heated water below ground becoming trapped in the channels leading to the surface. The deep water can not vaporize because of the weight of the water above. Instead  steam is sent upwards in bubbles ,collecting in channels tight spots until they become clogged,leading to a point where the bubbles lift tabove causing the geyser to over flow.This causes the pressures to decrease until suddenly violent boiling occurs producing tremendous volume of stem which forces the water out, this is an eruption in the form of fountain geysers or cone geysers.

But what enthralled me  was the colors created by the chemical reactions.The orange color is due to pigmented bacteria of the microbial mats, and the blue color to refracted skylight. The principal pigment for photosynthesis is chlorophyll, which is green. However, chlorophyll is sometimes masked by carotenoids, pigments related to vitamin A, which are orange, yellow, or red. Carotenoids protect the cells from the bright sunlight that occurs in Yellowstone, especially during the summer.

    Ye Kaun chitrakaar hai ….

Yeh kis kavee kee kalpana kaa chamtkar hai.

(  which poets imagination?)

Humming the lines ,the  wooden path I walked took  me  through  this wonderful  color spread  of  Geysers aptly named for the way they looked, like Plume,Beehive,Lion group, Doublet pool, Giantess,Crested pool,Beauty pool, Chromatic pool,morning glory and above all  the ‘Old faithful’ which erupts at a regular interval of 90 minutes which lasts for five minutes and the  water reaches the height of 184 feet.

This year marked the 140th anniversary of the worlds first national  park on March 1 1872.  It was a quite a long way from NYC to  Yellowstone National Park. But it was worth every single minute and every penny spent. The park is  located in the   U.S sate of Wyoming.  It also extends to Montana and Idaho. This  is the first national park in the world. and is known for the Geysers and wildlife and subalpine forests.

 Driving is a basic necessity in this area  and we had the luxury of the car as well as a  competent, some times bossy   but caring driver,Avi  our son  who was  also the master mind behind the tour.The five drive trip took us in and around Yellow stone and Grand Teton Nation parks.

The entry for yellow stone and grand Teton   national parks cost $25 for a non commercial vehicle for seven days.Stay was in two beautiful cottages,  the experience which itself  was worth the tour.

it was place of “All God made”  and maintained as it is with minimum interference by man.That was a  beauty .

Posts from New York-Quilt designs in Tree Trunks!

Central Park-Amble though the Ramble.

Staying across the road from central park in, Manhattan  NYC for a month comes with huge benefit of getting in and out of central park several times a day. Grown up in a green village in India I would never miss an opportunity like this which brought nostalgic memories of child hood, the difference between the two places is that, one  was pure wilderness where as every inch of this one  is  well  planned, designed   and maintained ,thanks  to vision and hard work of so many nature lovers.Right in the center of the city , it is amazing to have  a place like this .

The Official central park tour was not one to miss. Park Conservancy with it s umpteen volunteers, had a number pf tours planned  and one such was the’ Amble through the Ramble’ which took us over streams, arches, and woods and along a  maze of pathways in the 38 acre woodland respite.

As usual what interested me in this two hour walk was the trees. I spotted a whole lot of quilting designs in Nature. Each tree had a very unique design in its trunk. It only needed an eye to see it. And I had three. Two of mine and a camera.