Posts Tagged ‘sewing’
Why Quilts and Not Blankets II???
Posted on: August 29, 2010
- In: Patchwork | Women
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Well I searched the whole web. It’s for the first time I am utterly deprived of any answers. It never happened to me in my entire web searching life. It was a new and sorrowful experience of my small web life. I wondered weather it is an extremely bizarre thing to ask or it’s all hushed up matter, or am I the only one asking this question. But the fact of the matter is not a single website had any keyword to open at all or have some material about it.
Ok then I tried ‘hobby’, and it was some help to my hours of failed research. I made a round trip of all hobbies and somehow found some explanation to what we quilters do. As quilting is mostly a feminine hobby it is not at all mentioned in most websites. Imagine not even in Wikipedia. I felt more alone.
So from the aspect of quilting as a hobby I found that why we quilt? Why we spend hours upon hours of our mortal life to make some piece of fabulous piece of art. It is done by both rich and poor. Poor man’s need is rich man’s art. Ladies in court do it and women in gipsy tent do it. Some men do it too. I saw wonderful work of a Japanese gentleman. It was real art, not an ordinary quilt.
So here it is what I found on the websites definitions without opening them.
Word — HOBBY
A hobby horse is a wooden or wickerwork horse toy made to ride just like a real horse. From this came the expression to ride ones hobby horse, meaning to follow a favourite pastime .In modern times, sense of recreation.
Wikipedia
First an old proverb,
“A person with a hobby never goes mad, People around do”.
For sure. I can see.
Here are the expressions
1– A hobby is an activity that is undertaken for pleasure.
Good
2– Hobby is time consuming
Very right
3– Hobby is a thing you always want to do in your spare time.
Agreed
4– Having hobbies help to make you an interesting person.
So I experienced.
5– It gives you something fascinating to talk about with others.
Yeah, i talk a lot
6– Hobbies are what living are all about. Find a way to cure your boring life.
Very much agreed as my sister has retired from teaching and she has no hobby and is about to fall in deep depression, may be already is, let me check.
7– Some hobbies result in an end product of some sort; prove to turn it in a business.
A life time job for me. Never retiring.
8– Hobbies are practised for interest and enjoyment, rather than financial reward.
Very true! All my savings fall prey to fabric collection.
So we get the point. Like all hobby nerds we are doing it for the pleasure of doing it. The better part is the end with some physical results. Like some piece of material turned into useful thing.
No matter what we say I remember my father commenting one day when I gave him a quilted tea cosy for his favourite evening tea. He looked at the intricate design and all the quilting stitches, and very sorrowfully advised me. Dear daughter if you have so much spare time in your life, go read some good books. It will polish your mind and will help you understand that time is very precious.
I never dared give him another needle work.
So we are the way we are. Maybe God created this universe and all what’s in it. We tried to do so in our own limited ways .I am not sure about this notion. But when it’s in the blood, you have to have an explanation.
Or may be I am wrong, just go ahead and do it.
So here I am going to work on my Nosegay block design. It’s waiting patiently dangling halfway on my sewing machine behind me.
Seminole patchwork
Posted on: June 27, 2010
- In: Patchwork | Women
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Hectic Matchwork
I love patchwork; delicate, fine and complicated, and whenever there is fine work in any form, may it be knitting or needlework, my family and friends can tell, I did it 🙂
So is the case with patchwork, and I think Seminole is next to none. It is very fine in cutting, sewing and in final results, I feel like painting; the only difference is with fabric. As painting is my dream; but I can’t.
My first encounter with this form of work was just by accident, once as usual on old bookshop I saw some very unusual book with fine thin designs and colours on the front page. I took it or the rest of my life; it took me.
I read it, tried some designs, as usual with 3 times the grid, as I believed it can’t be done ¾ inch per strip. I made some but dishearten put the book away.
After some time again worked on it this time actual size and tried hard to match the tiny squares and whenever needed added some tucks and streaches. The results were clumsy but promising. As a professional I applied those strips on some pillows etc and they were loved and sold promptly. I found that even the first one was also in the same category. It has some pull, magnetic, or what. Then I practiced it with full effort and it paid, .So I started making it in voile and thin cotton, with summer and winter colours.
I used them on ladies dresses, all designs, shirts, stoles, and party wear. Used silk, cotton and other materials and when needed I stabilized light fussy fabric with wondaweb; real wonder.
I do exhibitions and take as much of Seminole as I can as it takes the burden of all expenses and takes the lion share in profits as well. Ladies fall like autumn leaves on my stall and others come to see what is happening there and fall too. These laces are so eye catching and fine and out of this world that people abruptly say; it is the fabric itself, no no it cant be stitching and when they hold it and feel it, the look they have on their faces, is utter disbelief. I love that part the most, Next they declare, she does not make them; she gets them made. In my country mostly ladies of high class don’t work, they get it done. So what! I say, appreciate the one who made it. It’s no secret that I make them my self and right now I am sitting close to a pile of cut strips in rainbow colours. How can I deprive myself of joy of playing with colours, without spilling them?
This is the book I believe I can weigh in diamonds, or if there is some more precious thing in this world.
I searched the web for more books or designs, but not much. Rather I have worked a lot in this field. I have worked in different mediums and on different pieces, such as clothe towels, bed linens, wall hangings, gift-bags, cushions, curtain-valances, and much more. I work in different sizes of strips for different uses. My colours and themes are quite different from the book, as I adapted them to my lifestyles and demands.
Seminole patchwork is loved by me and all my clients without a doubt. In Pakistan only I make them and try to teach if I find someone, but as it is very time and labour consuming nobody dares learn it . Only they want it done.
Ladies from boutiques see it, grab it, the whole roll, at times the whole range of that colour and flee with bounty as if it will vanish. They see new dress designs in it and are sure that it is a rare commodity. I make sets of colours and designs such as I work from 3 strips to 6 or seven strips, in colour gradations, and one biased strip to work as pipping, so when you get a whole set of design ready to use , you sure are to headstream for it.
I thank the authors and the CnT publications that did such a great job in publishing this book. It’s a treasure for me. Recently I wrote my comments on their web as well about this book. Luckily I have 2 of these, and believe me will buy again if I find some .These designs are joy and income in one go.
PAMBONO: Yes Yes, No No
Posted on: June 13, 2010
- In: Patchwork | Women
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I always wanted to make beautiful Pambono designs. I don’t have access to any of the books here in Pakistan. I tried to get some free patterns from the net but I could not make any presentable pattern. Once I tried to print a design from a website (I am actually the subscriber of that site). I took the print, enlarged it, made templates of the pattern and tried to make it my way! Some good was done. I made a quilt from that design. It was beautiful and I liked it.
One day searching in the old book shop in Vancouver, Canada I saw what I could never believed what I was seeing there. One no 2 books of Pambono, right before my eyes on the quilt books shelf. I picked them like a loving new born, felt them, cherished them, took a stool, sat down and opened the book and went through the whole like a journey long desired. Then I bought both in less than 7 dollars, old book shop, shrine of love.
I selected one design, read all the instructions of how to use the book then selected the fabric and set to cut the pieces.
I am a template lover that I can’t do without one. That’s why I find paper piecing very difficult although I do make templates for that method as well. But for this I was determined to do as told. It’s my habit to follow the book first and then change any if I can’t adapt the original method.
So I tried to cut all the pieces in the way the book mentioned, but right from the first cut I was unable to follow. I couldn’t understand 3/8 or 7/8. I found for the first time that I don’t have the ruler with 8 margins, I have a collection of rulers including rotary, so I tried approximate method such as ½ inch or ¾ inch, but I had to make enormous calculations, and in general the piece cut was not accurate, then I found one ruler with 8 sections in an inch, and tried to cut again, but there were so many pieces of the same size that I could not make out which one for what. I cut small pieces of paper and with tiny clips put details on each. Sometimes the piece was so small that I had to wrap the paper around it. But anyways I did cut some. Then as old habit dies hard, I thought if I have to cut one size in different colours, why not make a template of that number. I took out my stock of old X-rays and made a lot of templates for that design, and tried to write the details with marker, but again the 3/8 piece was too small to write.
I tried that method along with the books method, but in the end I had very out of size pieces cut and stacked in the trays, like candies in the basket.
Next I sat down for sewing. I am very fabric conscious. I can’t stand any wastage, whenever I cut with templates I try hard to set them in the manner that least fabric is wasted. At-times I keep squares and triangles templates handy to cut from the sides’ leftover fabric, such as lone star sides cut triangles. So when I sewed one small side square to the sides of main piece, on four sides, and cut the square along with the main piece, I had a pool of cut triangles under my feet. I was deviated. I can’t stand so much wastage: its murder! But since I wanted to follow the book I carried on, next was cutting each piece separately. I am used to cutting 8 layers at a time, saving a lot of time, but now had to cut each square from 4 sides individually. It put a lot of pressure on my fingers and time was another factor of waste feelings.
I still thought that I was new to this method, so don’t worry. I will learn with the passage of time and will learn the tricks of the trade, and these problems will reduce as well.
But I was wrong! Through out the project I had to follow the same rules and time and again I was up to abandoning the project. On the other hand this long time patch-working had planted some patience in my habit, so I carried on. I could not take the piece in exact size, so the next was out of setting. I had to cut and re-size all the time, but didn’t give up. Sewing was pathetic and backside miserable sewing room was a mess with wastage and all that. Emergency was declared and nobody was allowed to enter. Fans were shut and in this summer heat I kept on working.
To add salt to my injuries, not knowing the true number of pieces for each block, I had cut 28 flowers, and now I was determined to sew all, for the guilt of wasting the left over, as I knew I will never be able to distinguish the pieces form the cut wastage. I made 28 flowers, and don’t ask how many discarded and out of size were left to mourn. I will make some thing out of them some time.
Now to my delight I have 28 complete set of patterns to use any where I wanted. I made pillows, some bed runners and some complete bed set out of them, for my upcoming exhibition at the Expo Centre. It is the inaugural exhibition of this centre, so I thought the design was real set for the occasion.
Apart form all the pain; I am happy with the lopsided end result. I will soon make some more as I can’t resist the beauty of the patterns. It’s a must have, only if I can reduce the wastage and convert the design to templates; fools paradise, but all is well if the ends well! I love the drawbacks as much as the correct ones, as my life time wish had fulfilled.
I will find some new rulers and practice it time and again, as the tininess is the beauty. I will choose some more free time and better season to stitch.
My Patchwork Studio
Posted on: May 27, 2010
I always wonder how to set an area for any work in such a way, so that best of the place can be utilized. I wanted to work in smooth and comfortable manner. I wanted to work fast, more in less time.
I wanted to have my things ready whenever I had time for my sewing hobby.
In the first and foremost days when my boys were young and I had a medium home I had little choice. I had my cutting area on a huge aluminium quilt box. I had to adjust height by adding bricks under it. It was kept in the veranda. I had my sewing machine by the bedside as no other place was feasible. Then came storage, I had my stuff in the ironing box, in my dress closet, under my bed and in a closet by my bed.
I had to store my completed stuff behind a long sofa of the formal drawing room. So in a way I had a scattered sewing room all around the house. I used to stitch in the bed room and show quilts to my clients in the drawing room. But most of the time I was busy cleaning sorting wrapping and setting the house back in place after each sewing or showing session.
For basting of quilts I had to move sofas and tables to spread the fabric for cutting foam sheets etc. I had to clear my dining table, and set it back for dinner.
In this way more than half of my time was consumed in setting and shifting, still I could make a lot of quilted items. But it was always very tiring, especially picking threads and rages from the carpet and storing things under the bed.
I had to keep my quilts books with cooking books in the kitchen, and tools with boy’s stationery.
I always wanted a sewing studio of my own, go, work, leave as it is and return whenever I have time, all things in one place within my reach.
So when we moved to Lahore, Pakistan I had a mind set for a home with a sewing room. I had no mood to compromise on this issue.
I started making the blue print of the house with my craft room idea clearly in mind. What’s the worry, we have huge piece of land, ample amount to spend, willingness to make dreams come true. We can and will do.
Next time I will narrate the other half of the dream.
Piece n Patch 