Block Prints Quilt

Ever since I came home from Sisters, I have spent a lot of time in my sewing room. There are quite a few unfinished projects lingering in my head and in my studio. It is time to pay attention to those and make progress. 

"Block Prints" began in the classroom during Quilters Affair 2023. I always like to do live demo, give pointers and tip as I go along about the technique. After making a few blocks, my head kept going back to Jaipur, India, where the idea of making this quilt originated. 

I took the liberty to follow my own belief and decided to relieve myself from worrying about looking for perfection. I embraced the irregularities and imperfections that come along in this abstract interpretation of a block made with triangles. 

Before the book was published, I wanted to arrange the blocks in this setting but I chose the other way. So this was easy to decide. The picture you see here is the one from 2012 when I was making the quilt for the book.

I love how abruptly the triangles get cut, how they create a movement within the block and then somehow also create the rhythm going upward. 

This time around, I chose the colors and fabrics inspired by my experiences in India. The Pink City of Jaipur has left a lot of great memories. Watching  the block carvers and printers do their magic right in front of your eyes is something I will never forget. 

The colors on the buildings - shops, temples, homes, in old city are painted pink. They were painted in honor of Queen Victoria who visited Jaipur but the City Palace walls remained light gold. Ever since then, the buildings get the pink wash every now and then and so the city is known as The Pink City.

 

For this new quilt, I did not have to pull these pictures out to collect my fabrics. I rely a lot on my memories of places I have been and sites I have seen. Memories and conversations ultimately drive the creative process of making a quilt.

I finished the quilt top last night. It has been a long time since I made such a large quilt. I amused myself. It felt so good to be in the studio with the music on, picking and choosing fabrics in the shades of  terracotta, peachy pink walls and different shades of clay and dirt. In the village of Bagru, and surrounding areas, freshly block printed fabric and/or indigo dyed fabric is laid on the ground to dry and set with the heat of the Sun. The colors of dirt was important. I had also visited potters at the time and clay was important part of the blend.

 

 At the block printers, you can find variety of blocks in size, patterns, and designs.

So here is the quilt top. It took four years from my last visit to India for this to happen and 12 years since I had thought of making this quilt. 

 

 

I hope you are sewing something fun!

Sujata

 

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show and Quilters Affair 2024

It has been a few days since I got back from Sisters, located in central Oregon. This little town is a tourist destinations for skiers and hikers, three hours drive from Portland, OR. SOQS is the largest outdoor quilt show always held the Saturday after 4 July. It is ran by volunteers and free to attend for anyone who are excited about quilting. The show started when quilt artist and designer Jean Wells,  decided to hang three quilts outside her shop, Stichin Post.The following year there 12 and it became an annual quilt show known as Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.  

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show™  is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to educate the public about the art, skill, and heritage of traditional and contemporary quilts and fiber arts, while enhancing the cultural vitality of the community of Sisters and Central Oregon.

Quilters Affair Classes are held five days leading up to the show. In spite of living in the Northwest for 12 years I had never made it to the show or to the classes. My three children were little at the time and thought of leaving them for five to six days was not something that ever crossed my mind at the time. Now when I see quilters coming from all over the world to this little town and take classes of their choices from 30+ instructors, I would totally do it! It is an amazing site to witness. The students are novices to seasoned quilters, designers and artists from every corner of the united states and abroad. 

All of the classes are held at Sisters High School. Classes include beginning, intermediate and advanced level. They also vary from one to four days long depending on the subject and instructors. some of the classes include Barn Quilts, fabric dyeing, slow stitching, embroidery, art quilting, surface design, improve, traditional quilting, machine quilting, portrait quilts, machine and hand applique, stained glass, printing - You name it, you will find it there.

This year the show celebrated its 49th year! If I am not wrong, there were 1000+ quilts that were hung all over the town. The day of the show firemen from the town and near by town bring the ladder truck. They start hanging quilts all around the quilt shop at 7:30 AM. Mean while all of the volunteers are ready at their assigned places with the quilts. By 8:00 AM the entire downtown, front of the shops and community buildings are covered with quilts. It is sight to be seen in person.  

This year I taught three workshops. 

Color and Line - Two days

Kawandi - One day

Intuitive Art/Utilitarian Quilts - Two days

This year I was honored to be invited as an Inspirational Artist and have a special exhibit. Eleven of my quilts were hung on two sides of the office building of SOQS. I selected quilts that reflected my journey as a quilter. Here are some pictures of the quilts hanging at the show. 

I am in my studio because I was so inspired from QA, I came home and started working on an old project that was calling me. 

I hope you enjoy rest of the week and the weekend!

Sujata

 

 

Enter to Win Bernina 455 QE Kaffe Edition

Hey everyone!

It has been a while! I have to share some great news!

I have some great giveaway announcement!

 

 

Alex and Ricky at TheQuiltShow.com (my show is #2705) are giving away a BERNINA 475QE -Kaffe Edition this International Quilting Weekend. It is easy to enter. 

Click on the link below. 

https://thequiltshow78384.ac-page.com/2024-international-quilting-weekend-contest-entry

The contest ends on Monday March 18. The winners will be contacted by March 20.

Don't wait too long. 

Good Luck!

Spring Kawandi 2023

 

Seems like it has been a slow start to this year when it comes to creating new works. I have hardly worked in the studio lately. It has been months since I finished my last quilt. Yet, the way time is passing by, something tells me I am extremely busy. I better sit down and really think about where it really goes. 

Here is the last Kawandi I finished early this year. This one started out as wanting to take a break from my usual palette of colors and needing to work with texture. The choices of fabrics were random because I always want to achieve that scrappy feeling in my quilt. I do have lots of fabric in my stash and I could spend hours curating fabrics for a new quilt. Sadly, most of the time would go into pulling out fabrics and then refolding and putting them back again. 

Who wants to do that? 

So I pulled whatever was in front of me and got it going. Initially I thought I was going to mix solids and prints.  

 

 

But once I started stitching the patches on top, creating contrast with prints alone made more sense. So I added small prints, large prints and everything in between. Some of the fabrics were really easy to stitch through and some were quite thick as I was using shirts and dresses from the goodwill store just because I like some of those prints. After all these years of quilting, I still see some fabrics show up in multiple quilts and I can't seem to get rid of them. I must really love them!

 

 

Here is the shirt from the Goodwill store. I loved that print and wanted to make sure it got perfect spot in the quilt.

 

How about that hot pink? That was a vintage mini dress I picked up in San Francisco Goodwill store. I love the way it pops off of all other prints.

 

 

I am not sure If I am completely sold on a Kawandi with all prints. I spend so much time stitching on them but because of all the prints, the stitching gets lost.

The reality is, no matter what I plan before starting a Kawandi, it really doesn't follow the direction I want to give it. It has mind of its own. I just put one scrap next to the previous one. Is it mindless sewing? I don't think so. If anything, it is pretty mindful. I am engaged in making decisions, enjoy every stitch and the way it evolves. 

When it comes to those last stitches in the center, game time is on! I better be able to stuff all of that quilt in my left hand so I can stitch with the right. It somehow gets done. The last stitch is taken and for the first time I really can see it in its full glory. 

A fascinating process that teaching me so many lessons of life itself. Being in the moment is the biggest one of them all. This one though, I think it told me to take a break from flowers for a while. 

Sujata
 

Back from Two Years of Hiatus

They say you never can go back home. 

I wonder if that is what this is. In my mind, I know that isn't what I am trying to do. Having moved so many times, I have managed to keep the best of the best memories and friends in my heart. having said that, I have certainly let my joy of writing go by the sideways for a while. So, once again, here is an attempt to keep these conversations alive. Two years of absence is a long time. It took me a while to even figure out how to figure out starting a new post. 

There have been tons of ups and downs just like everyone else here and around me have gone through. I welcome them all when I am in the right state of mind. The only thing I have managed to to is continue to stitch, teach and live, which I am thankful for.  

Post cancer life has been a slow recovery. Continue to live with all the possible normalcy has been a challenge but at the same time, if I didn't do that, I would be writing here a very sad story. I rather share the quilting journey as I have done before. 

More importantly, I have come to realize that keeping the journal of my daily, weekly life as an artist is more important here than anywhere else. Slow stitching has become a daily practice, a way of my life. I start other pieced quilts but halfway loose interest and return to stitching. There is something so meditative about this process, it provides me the fuel I need to go through the days.

Here are some of the pictures of past few months in next few posts. Hope it springs me back to designing and making quilts. 

 

A visit to an art exhibit in Mumbai, India  

Things I find inspiring me, stop me on my walks, may show up in future works.

 

 

Excitement of early spring 2023

Meeting my best friends during a small and intimate college reunion.

 

What's on the design wall for quite some time but not moving me from this point. 

Our family has grown! This is us now! Our younger son got married last summer to his partner of five years. Older son and his wife welcomed another son. My husband and I can't keep away from Seattle.     Family is one thing that keeps me happy at any given time, makes me laugh, gives me strength to go through whatever life brings. 

Sujata

Conversations on Quilts from India

 

 It is my lucky week and I want to share my joy with you all.

 

Quilt from The Henry Drewal Collection

Lately my posts here on the blog  have been far and few in between. But I am happy to be sharing any information I can here about the quilting in India. 

There are two online events coming up within a week or so. I highly recommend that you sign up for both. That is if you are into any kind of hand quilting and hand stitching. 

The first event is about the Kantha Revival in Easter India and Bangladesh. What we know as quilter is kantha stitching but most have very little info on what an actual Kantha quilt is. This is a really good opportunity to view the film and join the conversation.  

Kantha of Bangladesh Tickets- $5-10

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kantha-in-bangladesh-from-hidden-corners-to-public-view-registration-140441196399#

 

Here is another event of Siddi Quilts of India. It is a conversation between Dr. Henry Drewal and Dr. Sarah Khan. 

The quilts from their collection are in an exhibit at Cove St. Arts . It will be worth a drive if you are anywhere near Portland, ME.

February 6 - March 27 2021

This exhibition is co-curated by Henry J. Drewal, Evjue-Bascom Professor of African and African Diaspora Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who first saw kawandi while documenting Siddi expressive culture in 2004 and Sarah K. Khan. All of the quilts in the exhibition are by members of the nonprofit Siddi Womens’ Quilting Cooperative, which is keeping this tradition alive and vibrant

You can also sign up for an event on eventbrite  - click on the link below. You may not want o miss this at all.

Soulful Stitching by Siddi's of Karnataka - Tickets  $0-100

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/soulful-stitching-a-scholarly-social-practice-tickets-141232412949?aff=ebdssbeac#

I would love to know what you thought after you attend these events.

 

Have a great week!

Sujata

Stories in Stitches - A New Begining

 

 

I was quite certain to be able to offer workshops in the month of January but it took us few weeks to get our footings back in the home. I have spent last three weeks unpacking, arranging and rearranging our belongings. I am sure it is not the end of it all but excited that we have managed to make some progress towards normalcy of life. 

Here is a little peek at my sewing space. There is a lot to organize. I can not wait to get my hands on my stash!

 

Guess what? All the plant babies survived the apartment from late summer to early winter. 

 

 

For me, normalcy in life also means teaching more workshops and I am happy to offer new workshops for Siddi quilt. Please click on the link below to sign up for the class. Once you have registered, you will have the access to the supply list and instructions for light prep work.  

You will also find the link for the zoom meeting for the day of the workshop. 

 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/139558833227

 

 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/122139882677

 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/139567499147

 

Feel free to send an email if you have nay questions regarding the workshops. 

Happy Stitching!

Sujata