I guess a couple of years ago or so, I participated in a round robin quilting project with an on-line textile art group, and found some wonderfully harmonious fabrics amid my material stash. The starting point for this kantha'd cloth was some of the left-overs from this project, which were too delicious to discard.
The finished piece is very roughly 18" square. The pieces include dupion silk, Liberty lawn in one of their iconic peacock feather prints, calico (US muslin) and
some patchwork prints. I searched hard for toning threads, and came up trumps with an assortment purchased via the Magic Armchair from my friend Dale in Australia. I pieced the fabrics, backed by two layers of buttermuslin(US cheesecloth?) and bound the edges with calico/US muslin. Then I started the kantha dance, using the stitch to blur the lines of the seams and to emphasize some areas of pattern and colour.
The stitching was a delight, like an act of meditation, intuitive, relaxing, centring. My father was very ill during his final illness as I worked this, and in working it I found a place of peace.
The back is also rather pleasing, showing the stitching without the distraction of the pieced and patterned fabrics.
Returning to this piece in the heat and humidity of summer, I realise I would like to work more in this way. It feeds the soul and creative spirit, is lovely to work and would make a great summer-weight bedspread, were I to choose to work that large.
This stitched cloth makes me smile.
9 comments:
this is wonderful - i love the look of kantha. i like the back of this as much as the front - a bedspread like this would be divine.
A lovely piece of work,I can see why you want to go back and do more
Looks wonderful - I love Kantha for exactly the same reasons - meditation, relaxing and soothing in times of stress. I have a piece to take with my to Oz and you've made me think I might go and start another to take :)
This is beautiful. In addition to the stiches, the colors must have made it very spriritual and soothing.
Thank you for your nice French comment on my blog :-)
Oh SO gorgeous......
Hi Sue. My, you have got a lot of blogs, didn't know where to leave my comment! Thanks for the input, I am so tempted to send all this to you just so I don't have to think about it anymore, but then I would panic that you could see what a mess the back is!
I love the Kantha. When I was in London recently they had some huge ones for sale on the Portobello road, out of my price range unfortunately.
So very, very gorgeous ... and so many, many stitches ...
Your stitching is fantastic!! It's so free and mesmerising to look at. My first though was "look at all that stitching - must have taken an age" but to see how flowing it is it's obvious that you were very relaxed in doing it.
I love it!
that's beautiful, Sue, and I love the back as well. and I am planning to get the purple shoes in Paris!
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