First Quilts - DQ Sangita

(Guest post by Sangita, the 13th in our series of 'First Quilts')

The making of my first quilt -  that is a journey that started in my mind more than 6 months ago when I saw my sis-in-law, Smita sewing quilts after attending a quilting workshop and networking with DQ and I too made quilts for my daughter, and my son, and my father, and my niece- or nephew- to-be, but all in my very vivid imagination!  In fact, I went along with Smita to the favourite haunt of quilters in Bengaluru - Okhalipuram and shopped crazily for fabric that appealed to my sensibilities with still no clue what I was going to make or how as I didn't even own a sewing machine (though my very generous sis-in-law had offered me the use of all her quilting tools including her sewing machine!). Then came my surprise birthday gift - a Singer sewing machine which left me speechless and my imaginary quilts started becoming more concrete - of course, they were still imaginary as I had no clue where to start and then the Universe finally got the message that I was not going to start quilting unless I was given it to me on a platter.

Well, once the Universe had done all the figuring out, it was a smooth ride with Tina Katwal of Quilts of Love, proposing to conduct a Blooming 9-patch quilt workshop which was instrumental in my first quilt taking that giant leap from imagination to reality. Of course, there were many in-between steps like choosing fabrics, learning to cut, learning to piece, learning to iron, learning to rip seams and most importantly, learning to keep the faith that all would finally work out in the end! It only helped that all the participants of the workshop and our Guru and our hostess were the most generous and sharing people I have come across and were willing to patiently teach me from scratch and not let me give up on myself at any point. All through the making of my quilt, I was in turns proud of myself and amazed that I could be instrumental in creating something so beautiful and by the time I had finished with the binding, I was totally in love with my quilt and could not bear the thought of parting with it - something which I had decided from the beginning would be a gift for my cousin's baby due in July! Well, right now I am working hard on deciding on my next project and harder on detaching myself from my beautiful first quilt :-)

 Love, 

Sangita 

(Linking this up with Chumkie's Linky Party on 9 patches @ 'My favourite things'.)

First Quilts - DQ Smita

(Guest post by Smita, the 12th in our series of 'First Quilts'. She was also one of the participants at the 'Blooming Nine Patch Workshop' @Bangalore and gives here an insider's account)

Here goes my first foray into writing a blogpost, hope some of you taking the time to read this monologue actually enjoy it!!!

Well it all began with guru ma Tina Katwal announcing her 2 day workshop in Bangalore, needless to say I didn’t bother to read the fine print (her form got mysteriously hacked so I took it as a sign to just register and not question too much !!!)

Once I had enrolled myself and Tina sent us a checklist of stuff  to bring to the workshop, the excitement set in and I called Nikhat , Pooja and my sis in law Sangita ( co-participants ) to plan what else….. a shopping trip to buy what any quilter never as enough off ….fabric !!!!

Pooja and I set off to commercial street as we decided it was too hot to go to oklipuram, and ended up getting ripped off in terms of price but we also had great chaat,  loads of laughs and in my limited life as a quilter I have found fabric and it’s price is never a deterrent to buying it !!!

So I had all the doo dads I needed to bring and in our enthusiasm we landed at Pooja’s door bright and 45 mins early !!! It was so good to see our most generous and lovable hostess who made us feel comfortable from the start and of course guru ma is quickly becoming one of my most fave people . We spent a few mins hugging and chatting and when I m around, shopping for fabric (Yes, I admit I have a problem but hey, it is a solemn duty to support the market in these recession times ;) ) So Tina handed over all the stuff we had asked her to get for us from batting to fabric and she also got her own sewing machine, the gorgeous black beauty for Nivedita to use as she didn’t own one .

We then had a brief theory session on 9 patches how they are made , how they can be placed and Tina tried to answer all our inane questions with a lot of patience !!!

We were then let loose in Pooja’s kitchen armed with rotary cutters and June Tailors and some of us managed to chip some rulers, break Tina’s cutter and yes, we even lost Pooja’s cutter by the end of the day! I live in hope that it resurfaces in her pile of fabric and if all fails, we will do what every one does when the going gets tough.. we will go shopping for another cutter !!!! What say Pooja ???

We finally sat at our machines and guru ma had us on a tight schedule that all strip sets should be finished by noon on day one and nine patches assembled by the time we were supposed to leave at 5pm that evening . Needless to say that plan was shot to hell as we were 6 of us, 2 June tailors and 5 rotary cutters ( we hadn’t lost pooja’s cutter then !!!)

Nikhat sensibly took her parenphilia and stood in the living room and did her work quietly and efficiently. Varsha was so sweet and confused the first couple of hrs as her choice of fabrics, no of strips, all were different from the rest of us as she wanted to make a bigger one and so till she figured out how much to cut it was already noon !!! Nivedita had no supplies so we all shared and it was sheer madness with 4 novices trying to cut 4 fabrics in various lengths and numbers on 2 mats with 3 cutters and 2 june tailors.. all at the same time !!

Needless to say we worked in controlled chaos and used the times we were waiting to chat and plan some more shopping trips !!! In the alternate reality that Pooja and I exist, we are these professional, brilliantly creative quilters, hence the need for shopping trips in this reality !!!

We started stitching finally around noon and then guru ma brought out her whip oops her seam ripper most specially for me !!

A wee detail I may have missed out to mention - the closest I'd got to sewing before this was threading a needle for my mum, so although I had a ¼ '' foot, didn’t really know how much  a ¼” really was and so ended up with ½'' seams. And everytime I looked up, there was Tina brandishing the seam ripper at me and me undoing my handiwork and restarting !!! It got to a point where I was measuring my seams after every 2" of sewing and ripping even before she asked me to. That earned her nod of approval and slowly I was getting closer to the actual ¼” , HURRAH one obstacle overcome !!!

We took a break for some yummy lunch; Pooja had made some divine aloo and then it was back to work. Nikhat had started chainpiecing her nine patches while Pooja  and Sangita were struggling at their respective machines . I felt like butting my head on the wall would have more success than butting seams, but Tina and Nikhat very very patiently taught and retaught the rest of us. Varsha seemed fine and not battle-scarred and worked at her own pace on the gorgeous maharani of machines she has, whereas our poorer cousin machines worked valiantly with us . I think she had a bentley to our maruti wagon r ‘s !!!

5 pm came and went. Some of us stayed sewing till abt 7 pm and all the morning’s enthusiasm seemed to have disappeared and disenchantment started setting in. I had so much to do and was wondering how I would ever finish. Then Tina took all of Nikhat’s nine patches and showed us on the design wall how it would all look , and though I was amazed at how it actually seemed to bloom, I never really thought I would get there.

I took all my strips and machine and left for home (Nikhat, Sangita and I were travelling together). We told Pooja and Tina that we would be back at 9 am to get a head start the next day !!!

When I reached home my back was hurting and more importantly I was heart sick and feeling maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew. Shraddha, my 17 yr old amazingly supportive daughter tried cheering me up. She insisted I take a break when I wanted to start work immediately, made sure I had dinner and then around 9 pm when I sat down to sew, helped me finish all my patches, She would stitch and I would iron seams and cut, and between us we were done by 11:30 pm !!! By then I was bone aching tired and I had also decided along with Sangita that I would stick to 3 instead of 4 fabrics as we really wanted to learn basting , quilting and binding .

We reached Pooja’s place by 8:45 am on day 2 to find her door locked as she had gone to pick up tina !!! Never let it be said we wasted time, we sat on the steps and Nikhat showed us some of her work and we also learnt another way of quilting (ie blocks are quilted and then attached )

Btw on seeing her mum so weary and blue, my sweetheart of a daughter accompanied us the next day and worked like a horse to help me and her aunt finish our quilts. Without her and Nikhat’s help I really don’t believe I would have been able to do so.. so thank you both wonderful people, I owe u ( btw Shraddha wants a piercing as her guru dakshina and am awaiting Nikhat’s demand J )

When we entered Pooja’s place our hostess surprised us by showing how she had stayed up and finished not only all her blocks but all her rows as well !!!!

We started in a merry mood again and I had my trusted lieutenant  by my side so we were done by 6 pm . When I say done, we managed to baste the quilt and I had quilted 3 lines under Tina’s eagle eyes and the binding would have to be done later after all the quilting was done .

I learnt so much during these 2 days by far the most important was to work slowly , love the fabric and be gentle with it and of course precision, precision and some more precision !!!

Btw when I was actually quilting at home I managed to stitch a piece of the table cloth to the backing, a piece of the extra backing to the backing, went to remove it and managed to tear the backing so that the batting stood exposed about an inch!! Thank God for Nikhat who patiently repaired all of it .

Tina showed us so many tricks, was so generous with her tips and open in sharing her knowledge.  These 2 days showed me that being generous, sharing and helping each other is a gift we were lucky to have experienced and the bonus was all those great quilts which were made .

Nikhat took time to bind my quilt and she did an amazing job ( I say amazing because while I thought so, she seemed shocked herself how well it came out !!!) She helped Pooja too and has offered Sangita her support as well.  I have attached some pictures of the quilt and hope the love and effort shows through.

Btw the finished quilt is 40" wide x 54” long.

So would I do it all again?..HELL YEAH !!!! and if I have the same group with me next time I might actually finish one all by myself and help someone else with theirs this time !!! 

- Smita

Linking this up with the nine-patch linky party at Chumkie's blog, 'My favourite things'.

The Forgiving Quilt

(We are happy to have a guest post by DQ Rama sharing her very moving experience of the buDa traditional quilting workshop) 

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THE FORGIVING QUILT

I came to Nirmala akka's quilting workshop with some apprehension. I have been so urbanized in my approach to work and people that her mere photo was a challenge. Would I be able to connect to my rustic and earthy nature; was the question. My apprehensions were uncalled for. The place where the workshop was to be conducted, the hostess, the facilitator and the teacher were all so natural that I was calmed at once.

The process of quilt making was grounded and rooted in it's simplicity and complexity. Luckily Nirmala akka and Savitha broke the process into tiny bits and fed us over 3 days like a mother breaks the meal for a baby into tiny mouthfuls. When 3 days were up, we were all equally amazed at how we had succeeded in creating  what seemed a mighty art piece.

The second day was an intense experience for me as the quilt started taking form. The steps are linked until the very end, and, from the very beginning. Every step takes the lead from the previous one; the continuity spoke to me. The flow and the connect could not be missed. And the more my urban culture was determined to make every stitch perfect, the more tedious the process became. So I simply gave in to the process and got into the flow, fumbling and struggling and caring the least at spots, and diligent, conservative or simply plodding along at others. Midway through, I had tears in my eyes and the threads and colors blurred into a psychedelic haze. So very much like life...so very much like life was all I could think! Once the quilt had spoken it's secret to me, I was child like and trusting and laughing and garrulous. 

My respect for Nirmala akka grew. Whether she was a rural woman who made home sewn quilts from bits and pieces or she was a budding entrepreneur, I simply saw her as my teacher and as one who had helped me discover a gift from within myself. A person who had travelled a long way in her innocence and trust in life.

How ever each one of us blundered through the process, the quilts were beautiful at the end of the day. Quixotic, ethereal, flowing and loving, an extension of each one of us. And in the final pic, i couldn't see the flaws, the fumbling, the struggling; all that shows is the flow, the magic and the depth of it.

As forgiving as the great mother earth, the FORGIVING QUILT. As demanding as the great mother, the INTRINSIC QUILT, as psychedelic as mother nature, the MAGIC QUILT.

love

Rama

DQ Bangalore Meet Report

Nirmala-akka's traditional quilting workshop was the perfect excuse for a DQ meet. After a round of introductions, 'Desi Quilters' was introduced. DQ is a forum for sharing and learning quilty stuff. And having fun in the process. Very important. DQ does not align itself with any one particular kind or style or technique of quilting. Its a place where everything quilty is welcome and encouraged, whether it is 'traditional' or 'modern', 'Indian' or 'Western', 'Orthodox' or totally 'Improv'. Terms like 'modern' and 'traditional' are totally relative and change depending on the perspective and cultural background of the quilter or viewer. What is 'modern' in the western world may be totally 'traditional' here and what is 'traditional' there is very likely to be 'modern' here.

After a brief discussion about DQ and its activities, the older members did a 'Show-and-Tell'. 

Veena started with the Drunk Love block she'd made as part of the Bee Desi.

Vidya showed us her Solar System WIP with the hundreds of hand embroidered stars.

Nikhat showed her Circles quilt and her clever use of circle applique and reverse applique with minimal fabric wastage.

Damayanthi explained her simple method of putting together Tumbling blocks.

Rama showed us some beautiful pieces created by a mentally challenged girl. She runs an organization that helps empower women by realizing their creative potential.

Uma showed us her monocromatic quilt with its lovely quilting lines.

Poornima brought her very royal looking velvet quilt that she'd made for her princess.

I (Tina) showed a bug jar quilt but since nobody shot a pic, I am going to make you envious by showing the amazing place I was put up at Savita's house!

So thats a happy pic of DQs, old and new.

DQ is an organic body that grows and adapts with its members. It is NOT a stiff, regulated body with rules, regulations or any commercial intents. All DQ members are encouraged to meet up in their own cities/towns, organize local DQ meets and events, and keep the sharing-and-caring alive. Thats the way we DQ, a-ha..a-ha..

DQ Bangalore Meet

DQ Bangalore Meet

Date: 03.08.12
Time: 5.30-6.30 PM
Venue: Vakil Gardens
Agenda:
1.Introduction to DQ
2.Members' introduction
3.Planning of next workshop by Nirmala-akka
3.Show and Tell
4.Tea

Everybody is invited. Bangalore DQs, please do bring your friends along and introduce them to this fascinating craft.

Watch this space for updates.

BuDa Folklore - quilting workshop

BuDa Folklore is back again with Nirmala-akka's traditional quilting workshop!

Some lucky DQs will be attending the workshop. Watch this space for their updates.

Sew lucky!