Quilt Group Demo

Supplies

1. Light weight sticky interfacing
2.  A selection of fabric scraps in floral and solids
3. Basic quilting supplies.
4.  Draw a 7×10   grid made of 2 inch squares on the non-stick side of the interfacing.

Fussy cut the floral fabric into 2 inch squares.

Cut the matching solid fabric into 2 inch squares.

Lay the interfacing on the iron table with the sticky side on top.

Arrange the fabric squares on the sticky side of the interfacing, corresponding to the grid, two rows at a time.

Fold the interfacing sandwiching the squares in between and stitch on the non stick side with 1/4 stitch margin.

Cut open the stitch in between and iron flat. Finish the rest in the same way and add batting, backing and bind place mat as desired.

This presentation and fashion show took us on a journey through time to a world of Sultans, Princesses, and the Splendour of an Ancient Empire.

It was good show and the models were extremely beautiful and poised.

Paper or fabric foundation pieces are used as foundations, which provide stability to all kinds of fabric.

To paper piece, trace the pattern or copy using a copy machine.

Ordinary printer paper can be used(If it is difficult to get the special paper) but better results can be obtained by using tracing paper.

Place a piece of fabric larger than the lined space on the unlined side of fabric in no1 position

Place piece 2 right sides together with piece 1 pin on seam line.

Stitch along the line on the lined side of the fabric.

Trim to ¼-inch seam allowance and finger press the piece flat on the backside.

The design will automatically form in the backside of the printed copy.

Foundation Pieced Book Marks

Materials -Assorted scraps of fabric,Fusible webbing,Buckram or any hard backing.

It all happened when we were unceremoniously dropped from a overbooked  ‘Gulf Airways’ flight to Delhi from Kuwait,   in Bahrain.No warning, no sorry,  we were  left out  of the connecting flight and  just given a  ‘B’ grade hotel and a boarding pass for the flight next day. The  flight  which we held a confirmed ticket ,left    with out us. –Watch out ‘Gulf Airways  flyers”- It can be you –Next time.

Heartbroken as we had   to miss the cock tail party of Neha’s wedding by reaching   a day later, ended grim faced in the hotel.

But, after  a while realising,  brooding won’t help us reach any faster to Delhi, decided to get the best out of the situation of getting a free visa to Bahrain:)

Necessity is the mother of inventions

The ‘mantra’ of travelling light had made me carry absolutely no hand luggage and there we were with not even a tooth brush or comb. Needed to take a bath but how to tie the hair up? What the heck, a length of toilet paper, rolled and twisted to a rope solved that problem.

Bahrain

Bahrain is an archipelago of 33 islands, the largest being  Baharin Island.A taxi costed only 7BD for two hours city tour.  The first stop was at the Al Fateh Mosque also known as the grand mosque.This was constructed in the year 1990. The most beautiful mosuqe I  saw for a long time.Although Al Fateh Mosque in Bahrain is a place where followers of Islam go and offer their prayers to Allah the almighty, any person belonging to any religion and anycommunity is welcome to enter the mosque. So said our guide/driver.

Al-Riffa old castle was the next stop. Riffa fort  is one of the prime attractions of the city. Riffa was originally the center of power till 1869. The fort was built in 1812. The interior of the fort is quite spacious and divided into chambers.

The national Musuem of Bahrain complex covers 27,800 sq meters and consists of two buildings.  The Museum was officially opened in December 1988 to become one of the latest and largest museums in the Middle East.

International Quilt Festival Bermingham 2011

Mabrook! Kuwait

My quilt ‘Mabrook Kuwait’  was part of the middle east  group quilts “Arabic Inspiration” in International quilt festival 2011  at Bermingham.  I could not attend but lucky to get the images from Penny and Joan who  took care of our quilts from Kuwait.You can see a better coverage of this exhibiiton ina vid cast form Bonnie Mccaffery-http://bonniemccaffery.com/vidcasts/062.html

Penny Armitage

Jennine Ibbini

Kathi Ewen

Miriam Ali Mousa

The ‘Durga Namaskar puja’ is a puja prayer to Goddess Shakti to lift us from the shackles that limit us on our path  of progress – spiritual and material.The Goddesss is invoked in the diya (lamp) Before we invoke Her, we invite her entire retinue to take their seat in the rangoli mandala ,the design & size of which is as prescribed in the scriptures – and the 5 colors each signify one of the 5 elements – red (agni-fire), white (vayu-air), black (prithvi-earth), green (jal-water) & yellow (akash-sky). We light 5 lamps – again to signify this. Panch Durga is then invoked in the central lamp.

The whole mandala was done by the priest on  chosen part of the clean floor in the house without any prior drawing. Design was created freehand and colors were filled by powders made of natural ingredients like turmeric,rice, etc.Black color was obtained by coal by burning of few particular things.It is amazing how the whole design comes to life .  Flowers were laid later on the “Mandala’ which is main way of worship.

Once the pooja is over all the things used to create the mandala are  disposed  by  placing them under any big  tree bed   to be mixed with mother earth.  A natural way of keeping the environment clean.

Commercial fabrics as block prints are repeating many of the traditional designs of rangloi. Many of the designer clothes have the traditional  pattern designs embroidered on them.None of these embroideries are from computerized machine patterns but the artisans freehand do it in very basic machines.

Moodbidri houses 18 Jain temples (basadis). The oldest of them is the 15th century Chandranatha Basadi, which is also known as the 1000 (Thousand) Pillars temple or ‘Savira Kambada basadi‘.

This is a large granite temple built in 1430 A.D. The main entrance of the thousand pillar temple, opens onto a wonderful 15 meter tall monolithic pillar called Mahastamba in front of the doorway.

The 2.5 meter tall bronze idol of Lord Chandranatha Swami in the sanctum hall is considered to be very sacred. The pillars of this basadi are decorated with carvings typical of Vijayanagara style.

It was in the year 2007  Machu Picchu was  added to the list of wonders of the world.  That year  our family of four went on a tour of Peru and Machu Picchu. Here  I had a chance to see the ‘Alpaca’ wool which was very expensive. The Alpaca is a domesticated species of south American camel . It resembles a sheep  in appearance and they are kept in herds. Alpacas only have fleece fibers,not woolen fibers  ad these are used for making knitted and woven items . The fiber comes in more than 52 natural colors . In textile industry ‘Alpaca’ primarily refers to the hair of  Peruvian alpaca.

We also took a tour of  Titicaca lake. .Lake Titicaca, is known as the the scared waters of  the Inca Empire and  separates Peru and Bolivia. ON Lake Titicaca there are several floating islands of reed  called the UROs  named after the Indians who inhabited them. These floating islands are very interesting and made out of reed. You cna see a cluster of these islands which are inhabited and also have schools ,hospitals and basic needs housed in different Uros. In these Islands I saw some beautiful piece of woven pieces and hand work.

The center for Traditional textiles of Cusco is trying to make sure that this ancient art is not dieing. Nilda Challanaupa gathers weavers to work on different projects.  They make yarn, them selves using sheep,Llama and Alpaca in a technique called ‘drop spindle’  ( I think that is  the method Gadhiji used to weave in India)They twirl the fleece between their fingers,dropping it down and winding it on spools and dye them with dyes made  using  plans and insects.

I have not done any weaving up till now .  The only reason for that  is my allergy.  I am worried about sneezing to death by inhaling wool particles.Recently I have been  seriously thinking to take a course in weaving as there is only one life and let me live it without fear of death.

A Tile Layout in Scientific Center Kuwait

Arabian Tiles

Faces of Arabia was a challenge thrown by ‘ Birmingham  quilt festival’  in  the year 2007.

 I, as  usual  wanted to create an original piece.  Loaded with my camera ,   I went around Kuwait city looking for inspiration and stumbled in the ‘scientific center’ and the tile lay out inside the center and took a snap which was used  as a  design element to create a background  for  my quilt.

          Several photos taken during my travel around the middle east,  provided the images for line drawing  .  With my limited knowledge of techniques  then,I knew only a few techniques .  Out of them one was thread painting and the other was image transfer. I converted the photographs into line drawings and image transferred them using the bobbin thread  technique.

       To give more authenticity to thread painting I made the blocks in black as if to represent pencil sketching on a white fabric tile.

 Photographs from a Camel Race from Kuwait, A bust of Tutankhamen from Egypt  museum,Belly dancer from a show in Dubai, car race from desert safari, and a  small boy  in Arabic dress( actually a grandson of my friend in dress up) all were image transferred .The boarders were not quilted as  the basic machine I had then was not able to do it as it had tension problems.So   I avoided the quilting part as time was running out.

 The quilt went as part of the group quilts to Birmingham and displayed there.

Geared  with more techniques and tools I may reproduce my own  quilt  in the near future.

Metallic thread  is a tough cookie and specially a cheep quality. But recently I have been trying all sorts of threads and not  getting  fooled by the drama my Bernina  machine creates in accepting them. I tried to fool the machine by making cheep thread   feel  good by mounting it up or dropping  it down to give it the extra weight age or pull it needs. It works:)

Taking a pencil sketching course can help a lot in thread painting.   I still have to finish a proper piece  for this workshop  which I have started and  hope it will not end up as a UFO.