A finished quilt - Under the Sea Jelly Roll Race Quilt

 Finally a finished quilt!

Jelly Roll Quilt

I finished the jelly roll top early this year and it was approximately 60 x 60 inches. I made the jelly roll from Indian block print fabrics in turquoise /emerald green shades. 

I thought I'll add a white border on top and bottom to make a 60 x 80 inches quilt, but I changed my mind when I found the teal green print in my stash just enough for the border! 

Initially, I thought I will do hand quilting but I don't have to confident LOL. I am still learning to make smaller hand quilted mug rugs and coasters and to jump into making a big one will be too ambitious, I think haha! So, after finished making the quilt sandwich in the afternoon, I went ahead and quilted it in the evening. No fancy quilting, simply wavy lines about 2 inches apart in my Jack machine. I used a stitch length 4 and it turned out ok. 

On the back, I made a panel from Indian batik which I got from Tina a few years ago and I got a matching floral print from my stash. 

I am inspired by Saira's quilts on Instagram. In case you want to make backing like this, I cut the middle panel at 42" x 62" as I want approximately 10" borders all around. The floral fabric has a printed border on one side, and luckily it was long enough that I can put on the top and bottom borders. 

The quilt is a birthday gift for my younger son. He loves green and he's happy with this one. Now, the quilt will be happily used - just in time for winter. He's been using the first quilt I made years ago. 

the elder son is helping me with the photoshoot! 

I posted the quilt on Desi Quilters Group on Facebook and Barbara mentioned that Under the Sea would be a perfect title for this quilt! Thanks, Barbara! 

I'm glad I got one UFO quilt done and I still have 2 more big quilt tops to quilt. I hope I can finish them within this year. I picked the backing already and I got a full roll of cotton batting, so I really have to make an effort and finish them :D. 

Thank you for stopping by!

Stay creative, stay safe!

Elvira

Kantha - More Than Just a Running Stitch

 

my first Kantha Embroidery

I joined a Kantha Embroidery Online Workshop early this month. It was a 3-day workshop and I really had a great time learning. 

Brinda Ma'am and Nafisa are really patient with all of us and encourage us to take our time. I was pretty slow with my progress cos it was a busy week for me. 

We started making a sampler stitch on day one. It's amazing to learn that all the beautiful Kantha designs are done only with one simple stitch. The art of creating design with one stitch is really challenging. Creatively challenging! Kantha is an embroidery art which is originated in Bengal (West Bengal, Orissa, Tripura, and Bangladesh). 

The purpose of doing a sampler stitch is to familiarize us with the stitches and flow of work since it's different from regular embroidery. I have not done embroidery for years so the sampler really helped me. As I progress I noticed, my stitches are getting better. I used poplin cotton fabric and 3 strands of embroidery thread. 

Once we're done with the sampler, we moved on to work on a design. We were given 4 designs by Nafisa and I chose this one below.  Nafisa and Brinda Ma'am kept telling us to take our time deciding what stitch we want to use in our design. That way everyone will have a different result. It's really inspiring to see others embroidery even though we're using the same design but the end results are different. You can check others' works on the Moments of Quiet Facebook Page.

If you're interested to join the workshop, check out Moments of Quiet Facebook Page 

While Kantha is widely popular, it is also loosely interpreted as just a big running stitch in quilting, which is basically not. Kantha is more intricate than that. 

Nafisa showed us her 100 years old Kantha quilt belongs to her great-great-grandfather and also a few samples of Nakshi Kantha of Bangladesh. 

Nakshi Kantha (Source: ich.unesco.org)

Kantha tells the story of cultures and history. While the Indian Kantha has evolved in terms of design, including animal and intricate floral patterns, the Bangladesh Nakshi Kantta still sticks to the original Kantha with geometric patterns. 

I am glad I decided to join the class. Learning the history behind this ancient art is really refreshing. There are several books available on Amazon which I think I'll buy. Thank you Brinda Ma'am and Nafisa for the great workshop! 

Here's our virtual selfie moment! Learning and sewing with others are really fun! I'm looking forward to join in more online workshops! 

Thank you for stopping by! I hope you enjoy your visit to my blog.

Happy Crafting,

Elvira

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