Art Quilts – betukbandi

The Library at Midnight Quilt

Ever wonder what happens in a library at midnight, when the whole house sleeps? Come, find out!

Long ago, I saw a delightful ‘Library at Night’ quilt on Pinterest; the quilter was not mentioned. I had been wanting to make my version of it ever since, and got an opportunity when my late cousin’s wife requested a quilt for her three-year old granddaughter AS! I suggested this idea to her and she loved it. I took her list of the books she would like AS to read and got working.

I searched for original/ classic or most popular editions of these books online, so that I could make the spines authentic. I started by painting these.

Spines painted to match original and early editions

His Dark Materials trilogy has cutouts of the letters.

I soon discovered that this was going to take forever, so I switched to printing the spines on fabric.

The Lord of The Rings Series is printed; so are the books immediately above these.

Once all the titles were done, I had to decide which characters would come alive at midnight in the library. Again, searching the illustrations in the books and their covers gave me the material needed. Here is a look at some of them!

Mother Goose was the first to come up.

Some collaged figures and other print-outs…

Mr. Darcy is my favourite! Catherine was also good, I thought.

Manderley up in flames from behind those huge wrought-iron gates…

You get the general idea! Finally, all the books and their sleepless characters were ready to be put together.

Experimenting with placement of the books

Once that was done, I raw-edge appliqued all the pieces to the background, shelf by shelf. Then came the quilting. I decided on a wood grain for the wooden book-shelf.

Here is a look at some more of the characters, now quilted.

Some more characters who emerge to have a midnight bash!

Any guesses which book is flying open under the Brown Bear and Sam I Am?

My cousin wanted some Indian classics, so the Mahabharata and Ramayana were a must! From the Mahabharata I chose Draupadi appealing to ShriKrishna as she was disrobed, while the flute and peacock feather on the top shelf represented Him.

I even made a gold-framed portrait of my dear cousin, the little recipient’s grandfather, to be placed on a shelf in the quilt. But his wife wanted it for herself, so it became a gift for her, instead.

Finally, the quilt was done but for the borders

A border with a wall-paper vibe…

And it is done!

Done? I don’t like the empty corner on the left of the bottom shelf

That is better! The dedication from the grandmother also goes to the bottom shelf.

Zoom in to see how many characters you are friends with!

Perhaps this will give you a closer look.

That was the story of the Library that came alive at Midnight! I hope you enjoyed it and that it inspires you to make something similar.

Happy Quilting!

Falling in Love — A Portrait Quilt

A portrait quilt—all in colour—of a joyful young couple, using fabric collage against a pieced background, with lots of thread-painting.

Last year, a dear friend entrusted me with the task of making a wedding anniversary gift for her daughter (whom I shall simply call A). It was to be a portrait of A and her husband, to be called, what else, H!

I chose to combine two pictures, taking the gorgeous couple’s faces and figures from one and placing them against a background of a yellow maple tree during fall. The couple had met and fallen in love in Canada, so this seemed only appropriate!

The quilt which turned out to be much more difficult than what I had envisaged. For one, both of my subjects were smiling broadly!

H’s smile Falling in Love portrait quilt

H’ s eyes were behind his glasses and getting that shading right is always a problem.

H had a delightful dimple, but how do I portray that in a fabric collage? Not to forget getting that beard right.

Then there was A’s beautiful long shiny, silky hair with highlights in reds, auburn like the colours of fall around her!

Let us not forget the clothes and the accessories.

Details of A’s leather jacket with its zipper

The maple tree in the background was not easy!

The maple tree in fall—I appliquéd some branches and leaf cut-outs randomly on the pieced background

I wanted to show some sunlight peeping through the tree, to reflect the joy on this couple’s face.

The sky peeps out from between the yellow leaves.

Despite the long, long hours it took, it was all worth it and I had quite a sense of satisfaction and achievement when it was finally done! ( I do not recall exactly the dimensions of the quilt, but I vaguely remember it was about 32” x 40”)

So I now leave you with a couple of videos of the quilt.

Falling in Love— the gorgeous couple! May they continue to smile together lifetime after lifetime!

I hope A and H love the quilt as much as I enjoyed making it.

The Poncho Girl – A Portrait of Tana

A Portrait Quilt

I am overwhelmed with emotion when I try to write anything about this portrait of my daughter…I will try to just stick to photos of how it was done!

This photo, so quintessentially my Tana, was my inspiration for the quilt! I started working on it in January 2022, about a year from when she passed on.

Vectorization done on the Vector Q app

The collage came up pretty quickly!

What followed were a couple of trips—one exploring Rajasthan and another one in to Gujarat! Finally got back to working on it, hoping to finish it by her birthday in April!

Sadly, didn’t feel quite done on her birthday. Needed a lot of more quilting to add depth to it!

( Note that I am trying ‘contour quilting’ quilting on it, where the quilting follows the face contours)

This looks better, right? But I don’t like the way some of the lighter threads stand out against the darker areas! Gives it a harsh look! Not for my gentle darling, it wouldn’t do!

I used Inktense pencils to reduce contrast in the in-between areas and darken some stitching lines so that the threads matched the fabric!

Tip: A bit of Cadmium Orange or Burnt Orange does wonders to soften harsh contrasts in portraits, especially with our Indian skin types! It is great for lip-colour too!

A close-up of her smile

See the Inktense at work!!

The hair…

Were those the most beautiful eyes in the world that mirrored the purest soul that ever lived?

I cut out a poncho I had made for her and used it to dress her! The flowers and leaves were also cut out from the poncho.

The quilt was mounted on a ( mounted) canvas, which makes it easy to hang. It now lives in my living room where I can look at her while watching TV…

…or touch her, talk to her, smile at her every time I walk past her!

She smiles right back!

So that is my Tana in her poncho!

The Broken Wing: The Crane Quilt

A miniature silk quilt completed in 2018, for Andy Brunhammer & Jim Smith’s Hope Project.*

Patchworkofmylife crane mini quilt — Pieced origami quilt block

The beautiful cream colored silks were a gift from Tina Katwal of The Square Inch, Chennai!

The cranes are lightly trapuntoed and outlined in silver thread.

Ready to hang…

*The Story of the Hope Project:

I quote Jim:

A couple of years ago a Facebook connection was making Cranes quilt blocks, and I learned that he was making 1,000 Crane Blocks. I asked him about his idea and why did he feel inclined to make the 1,000 Cranes.
I had read about the young Japanese Hiroshima victim, Sadako Sasaki and her challenge to herself about attempting to fold 1,000 Origami Cranes. The tale spins in different directions whether she survived her goal before she passed away from complications attributed to the nuclear explosion and sickness…

I then asked Andy if he was willing to, between quilt projects, to possibly create Crane paper-pieced blocks from leftover scraps. I told him that I had an idea of designing and creating, once we reached 1,000 Cranes, a possible series of Cranes Quilt panels that we could donate to a children’s hospital.

Andy agreed. I created a pattern. At the time we were asked by a friend of ours, Melissa Helms, to design a quilt for the 25th Anniversary for a children’s cancer society...

And so the Hope Project was born, which I joined in.

The Hope Project was premiered at the UUC Octagon Art Center in Clearwater, Florida in January this year. Five of the 40 odd quilts made by Jim and Andy were also recently shown at Houston 2019. They eventually hope to donate their collection to a Pediatric Cancer facility/ organization/ hospital…

Who’s The Prettiest of Them All?

I bought this panel of the Frozen princesses To make a quilt ( or wall hanging) for my grand-niece who is a great fan of the two!

The Frozen Princesses Anna and Elsa are my grand-niece K’s favourites!

She was due to visit us and I thought of a quick gift for her. But how boring would this be!

So I came up with this idea.

K goes to the centre of the panel, while the other two look at her admiringly.

I printed her face on a printer-ready fabric sheet after calculating the size I would need to make it.

Everything got more complicated than necessary because I planned to put K on the right side. I cut out the pink princess ( is that Elsa or Anna?) before I realised that that would make my darling Princess K an ‘outsider’ because the other two had interlocked arms.

So I disengaged their arms and locked them with Princess K’s who moved to the centre. Ah, that’s the way I like it. The Disney Princesses look at her admiringly ( and a bit enviously?). The Resident Consultant did not think much of my original idea of a silver dress for his Princess. So I retained the silver yoke and made her blue dress from…a rayon grocery bag! ( Jaipur is a big exporter of women’s clothing. With single use plastic being banned in India, our shopkeepers are using bags made from export-surplus fabric and export-reject dresses).

The quilting was kept to a minimum. ( Also because I had just over a couple of hours for the quilting and finishing). I folded the lighter pink border to the back of the quilted piece, leaving the darker plum inner border to frame the quilt. No binding. The top border became the sleeve.

Not that my Princess minded the short-cuts taken to finish her portrait! She couldn’t believe what she saw.

“How? wow! how? wow…”, she exclaimed!

And here is the Princess herself, posing with her quilted wall-hanging.

Now that done, I have to decide what comes up next!

Category: Art Quilts

The Library at Midnight Quilt

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Falling in Love — A Portrait Quilt

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The Poncho Girl – A Portrait of Tana

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The Broken Wing: The Crane Quilt

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Who’s The Prettiest of Them All?

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