Last December we traveled to India. It was a fantastic experience! We saw many amazing things, ate lots of delicious food, and met many wonderful people. We also had the opportunity to ride an elephant and a camel.
As I did in Japan and Thailand, I was fortunate to be able to purchase some locally made fabrics. Some were at a store in Jaipur, the rest came from the "Ganesh Handicraft" store in Udaipur (thanks, Mona!). What an amazing place! The walls were covered with quilts of every size, color and pattern. Here are some of them:
So I took these as my inspiration to make a quilt that captured the essence of India as well as our personal experience there. Thus the camels and elephants!The fabrics I purchased were cotton and a very coarse, open-weave raw silk (I really only wanted cotton, but Ganesh only carried the silk). The silk has a beautiful sheen to it, but it was very difficult to work with. Had I known that up front, I might not have made the paper-pieced animals.
I ditch quilted it using gold metallic thread. This is the same type of thread that is in the red medallion fabric, and it also reinforces the sheen of the silk.
Click to see other views.
And, to see our India photo album click here. It is best if you do "slide show", "full screen", "one page at a time". Then you can read the captions better.
3 comments:
Wayne, I often think of us as parallel quilters with similar taste, talent, and skill. But then you post something like this, and I realize I have far to go. The next time I make fun of you for working with silk, just quiet say, "Sari Safari." And that will end it. This is beyond beautiful. I'm blown away by the colors and how well this piece captures the essence of India.
The elephant & camel blocks....nothing short of amazing! Beautiful piece, true artwork!
Wonderful work Wyne. I love this one. It gives me a homely feeling.
Keep up the good work.
Take Care
_Pushker
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