free motion quilting

Pali Darwaza at Rajgad Fort—A Quilted Portrait!

Thread Sketch of Entrance Gate to ‘Rajgarh, Hill of the Kingdom’

Completed Quilt#2 in my 19th century wood engraving print series! 7” x10” The original print dated 1883, is 3.5”x5” and the image is from periodpaper.com.

The monument shown is, I believe, Pali Darwaza or the ‘first gate’, at Rajgad ” king of all forts “, near Pune, in Maharashtra, India. Rajgad, known as the unconquerable fort, has a history going back to at least the 15th century, but is best known because of its association with the great Shivaji, whose capital it was for over 26 years! Interestingly, this is a reverse image of the original monument, possibly because the original engraving on wood was correct, but when printed on paper, it got reversed. Look at this picture, from Wikipedia, taken from above, would you agree?

Here is the reverse of my quilt, picture taken before I quilted the background.

I photoshopped the original picture to reduce the contrast and gave it an antique paper finish, before printing it on A4 size printer ready fabric sheet.

Tha sandwich was made with thin poly-batting and free-motion quilted with YLI Softouch ( black) and variegated Gutermann (sand) on Hasina, my Husqvarna Viking Topaz 20. I wanted to clarify that is not first thread painted and then quilted. Finished the edges with a simple zigzag ( which makes it eady to frame under glass, in case the recipient decides to) and a corner curled in to give it a dog-eared look! Here is a close-up!

Can you guess that you are going to see more of these thread sketches here?

‘The Tchatri at Tintoui’…Sketching With Thread and Some Detective Work

One thing that has always entranced me is the illustrations of buildings and places from the India of the nineteenth century. As the British travelled across this vast and fascinating land that they had recently colonised, they made a record of its diverse flora and fauna, its people and its rich architectural heritage. An artist usually travelled with the demographer/geographer/biologist/historian and the final document presented to the world was beautifully illustrated …such intricate drawings, with the minutest details!

Ever since I learnt to sketch with India ink on paper, I wanted to be able to draw like that! (One had those nib pens, that you dipped in bottles of ink and you controlled the width of the stroke by the angle of the nib and the pressure applied!) I never got around to it, but you can see some of my drawings from those days, about 40 years ago, here.

When I started quilting, I wondered if I could replicate those ink drawings with thread. I finally got around to trying it a few days back!

I would start with something not too complicated, I decided. This seemed a good candidate!

I reduced the contrast and brightened the image, till I had an outline of the basic shapes monuments and trees. I then changed the image size to 8″ x 10″ and printed it on printer- ready fabric. Added a 2.5″ wide mitred border in black and prepared the quilt sandwich with thin poly batting.

It was free motion quilted on Hasina, my Topaz 20 ( embroidery needle size 70) using YLI Softtouch thread.

Here are some pictures showing the progress of the quilting!

I quilted the background with Invisafil smoke.

The background done in Invisafil smoke and the quilting is almost done, bar the finishing touches!

I wondered how it would look if I coloured it lightly, but was scared to ruin it. Then I had a brilliant idea! I flipped the quilt over, and tinted some areas of the back of the quilt with Inktense colour pencils! And added the border with some fancy stitches.

I think I like the back better than the front, but no one seems to agree!

When I flipped it over, I loved the back as much as I liked the front! Or perhaps more!

Now began my search for the monument that had been the inspiration for the wood engraving.

The legend read, ‘Tchatri at Tintoui in Bheel Country’ and I presumed that these would be the chhatris ( pavilions or canopies built over a place where a member of a royal family was cremated) near Udaipur in Rajasthan. The Bheels a proud, warrior tribe have long inhabited the forests near Udaipur. But I wondered about Tintoui.

A search on google maps took me to Tintoi in Gujarat, South of Udaipur, presumably also ‘Bheel Country’ – you can see how the hill forest to the West of Udaipur continued southward to the North of Tintoi.

Now to hunt for a chhatri near/ in Tintoi! Is it possible that Tintoi, now a small village, was earlier the name of a much larger surrounding area? Further research revealed that Sabarkantha District in which Tintoi Village was located also had ancient monuments in a forest area, called the Polo Forest! From there it was easy!

Not only was I on the right track, I also found my pair of chhatris, sadly much worse for wear over the last 140 odd years! But totally recognisable, including the tree with its slanting trunk! The website of Gujrat Tourism provided me the best picture of my chhatris! !But…the chhatris seem to be ‘flipped horizontal’ or a mirror image of the wood engraving! How was that possible? Then it struck me. The original engraving was true to the monument, but when it was printed on paper, a mirror image was created! Check the back of my quilt!

Isn’t that amazing!?

You can imagine how delighted I was. The Polo Forest is definitely on my bucket list of places to visit now!

I leave you with this image of my finished mini quilt. But I will be back soon with another thread sketch, for this is addictive, I tell you!

Another Modern Quilt…

Modern Relish Cafeteria Line pattern modified – Quilt#2

Well, technically, it is the same quilt, but quilted differently. I told you how it started off as one large quilt, and ended up as two quilts! In fact, I quilted this one first, but the binding on the other one came first.

This brown strip that used from my stash was thicker fabric than the rest used on the quilt. So every time I reached this band, the thread would break! You would appreciate that that was pretty horrible – I ended up stopping short of the band, skipping that area and continuing on the other side! I came back later to complete the brown band by walking foot! Which also meant I had several dozen pairs of threads to bury all along this strip on either side. In fact, I can still spot some threads which need to meet their end inside the batting, but I wanted to take these photos before the sun set!

Reminds me of children throwing stones in a pool!

I experimented with some straight line quilting to make my task a bit easier – you can see that on the coloured fabric.

Wasn’t such fun when being done, but I like the end result!

I have done a quilt before with a spiral, but that was a single huge spiral on a quilt as you go panel and I think I used a walking foot. This one was almost entirely done with the echo free motion quilting foot, so was quite something else. Over all, I am quite satisfied with the way it turned out!

For the backing, I found an interesting print in brownish greys, which went quite well with my main prints.