A bit of progress

A glimpse...

Halfway through quilting. Hope to finish a work on binding today.

This week’s project

Margins

I am working on a Ramshackle piece for Stretching Art and Tradition 20. The theme is Community. So, perfect for an idea I have had.
And here is a glimpse from early in the week when the sun was shining through the window.

The sun picked up the chalk marks I made for the villages and houses.

Sister Artists new exhibition

Update on the Sister Artists project.

“Exciting news - the dates for the exhibit at the New England Quilt Museum have been set. 1 - ‪4 April 2020‬.

‪Thursday, April 2, 12:30‬ - Brown Bag Lunch - The museum has invited us to give a Brown Bag Lunch talk. This takes place in the Genre Gallery and can have anywhere from 5 - 20 attendees.

‪Saturday, April 4‬ - Hollis Chatelain will be speaking about her Stories of West Africa exhibit. Hollis came to the event in DC and was very moved by all your work. She will be announcing the quilts she has selected for recognition. We will also be recognizing the three quilts which were selected for Viewer’s Choice in DC (there was a 3 way tie!). “

Mali collaboration

If you are in Washington DC tomorrow...head to the Textile Museum. 😁

My collaborative piece ‘Hunting with Husband’ will be part of a one day exhibition of art quilts which were made using an embroidery from a Mali woman. These women have fled conflict induced gender based violence and are being taught skills for earning their own livelihood. ‘Sister Artists’ is a project under the umbrella of the Advocacy Project and Quilts for Change.
The work will be auctioned and the money will go back into the project in Mali.

Road Repairs-finish!

The backing and binding have been put on. The statement written. And parcelling sorted.
Now it is on the way to its destination.

Road Repairs

Some years ago, I heard about young boys being used to repair roads. In one image a rather large car was in the distance. It made me think about the boy. If he was using the tool to farm, perhaps it would not be such a concern. But being employed for low pay to work on the potholes for a dirt road? This lad (and many other child labourers) stick in my mind. So, it is time to raise awareness of what happens ‘on the road’ in some places.

What bothered me was that he now is denied education. His work doesn’t benefit his family or himself, because except for the minimal wage he earns, the benefit is for the rich to be able drive their expensive cars without damage. Where are the men who run these crews? What effort do they put into the work? Who pays for any injuries? What about the future? He will most likely face back problems and breathing difficulty as a result of exposure to dust and hard manual work.

Something must change.

Materials: cotton, variegated threads and crochet cotton, felt, fabric pen

Techniques: Free hand stitch and embroidery, appliqué, drawing

Road Repairs-the lad

And so the boy has been built.
I sketched him out and then cut the sketch apart to use as a pattern.

And here he is.

Road Repairs

Some of my quiet here has been due to being busily stitching on my piece for the Contemporary Quilt Suitcase collection. As you may know, I have taken part for the last three collections.. The theme of this one is On the Road. I am using this theme to make a piece inspired by an image I saw showing a young lad of school age repairing pot holes in a dirt road.

So, now I have finished the background.

Next, to make the lad.

New Stitching

Starting a new stitching. This one for ‘On the Road’ Contemporary Quilt’s new suitcase collection.
I was going to do some sewing for me, but I had forgotten about this. It had a good idea, so I decided to get going while I could.

I was feeling very lost after the last stitching finished and there wasn’t something in my hands to do. I am using herringbone to give texture.

Finished! Sister Artists

The binding is on. The label and the sleeve on the back. And the parcelling up has been done.

And the parcel started its journey to Washington DC at around noon today.
Hurrah!😁👍🏻

Sister Artists

Sister Artists
And the front!

Today I have been stitching the backing on...(while I sat for nearly 2 hours waiting at the hospital eye clinic. I am glad that I have had such helpful Dr.’s lately. )

I tried to keep the embroidery , done by the lady in Mali, the focus. Yet I wanted to set a scene as well.
The work had been called Hunting with Husband. In my head, the story showed the lady working in their plot while the husband gets rid of birds coming to take their harvest.

Sister Artists

So, teasing a bit, I have finished the embroidery. All that is left is backing and binding.

I hadn’t planned to put a backing and I really liked the way the back told the story of the stitching on the front. But when I was showing my friend the progress and mentioned leaving it like that, she suggested a backing. Her reasoning, that whoever would bid on it might be a bit reluctant on how to hang it and care for it. 

Closeup of part of the reverse. 

As I have thought about that, I realised it was wise advice. Someone who knows textiles might appreciate the view of the back. But if it were someone else, they might worry about threads catching, etc. 

The reverse of the stitching. 

So, I am putting on a backing and binding. I will show the complete version when that is finished. 

Another closeup. 

Sister Artists

close up of greenery in the foreground.

The fringe of the precious fabric (which didn’t work for this project). I turned the fringe upside down and secured it with a green crochet cotton thread.

Sister Artists

I am nearing the last of the stitching now. This is a closeup of the stitching on the tree leaves.

The fabric I used was actually shrubbery which I turned upside down to be clumps of leaves.

Sister Artists

so to the leaves for the trees.

I had a precious piece of fabric I knew was the right colour for the leaves. I cut it into sections that would work in an abstracted tree sort of way. 

That is until I had positioned and repositioned them. I just couldn’t settle on it. Then that night I realised the precious piece would just not work because there was not enough of it. If the tree trunks were smaller, maybe. But because they went from top to bottom, they needed more fabric to even just suggest the idea of a tree. 

Next morning, I went to the ‘ landscape’ section of my stash and found something better almost straight away. 

I fussy cut sections and worked with them to layout something much better. Not particularly the type of tree grown in Mali, but it gives the look of a view through the trees that I wanted. 

I am now stitching these clusters of fabric down. 

The precious piece does make a little showing... it had a fringe omit, so now it will become grass growing at the bottom of the trees. 

Sister Artists

Next step:
I wanted to make trees on either side of the scene. I liked the idea of something like bark cloth. But rather than the brick coloured bark cloth I have from Uganda, I found the mulberry bark I have to be a better colour choice. It picks up on the colour of the man’s hat and trousers.

I auditioned a few threads for stitching it down.

Sister Artists

Sister Artists- next step has been the side borders. I had this South African shwe shwe print that picked up more colour from the embroidery. It is more like quilting cotton weight, than the heavier fabric you normally see.  The fact that it has the different prints keeps it interesting.

And of course it wanted hand sewing, too! I finished last night. Took just over one skein of orange variegated thread from InStitches. I alternated running stitch and French knots.

Sister Artists

Now I have added the bottom border. I chose this African print from Tanzania. It brings it some of the colours of the embroidery. 

Running stitch 

I decided to use my adaptation of the Pekinese Stitch...the loops over running stitches. 

The threads are from InStitches , one of them the same as used on the scraps which make up the ground. 

When you see the piece in person, the lines that have been made by the loops are obvious. 

Heee you can see the difference made by covering the bold print with stitching. The original fabric is on the left. 

So the fabric is blended into the whole much better. 

Sister Artists

I have still been working on the embroidery from Mali. 
The kantha stitching with white sewing cotton is finished.

I have placed a batik piece at the top. Somewhat as a border, and so acting a bit like sky.

In order to knock back the butterfly print some, I have stitched over it in blue. You can see the difference in the upper right...the photo was taken just before completing that section.
Next is the fabric for the bottom.

Sew Powerful helping to keep girls in education

one of the things occupying my time while at Festival of Quilts was to help at the Sew Powerful stand. This company has been involved in supporting ladies in Zambia to get their  children into school.
They taught and employed mothers to sew school uniforms. But after a time they learned that girls stay out of school when they are on their period. This means that they have lost so much schooling that they cannot pass their exams. So the project expanded to having the mothers sew reusable sanitary materials.
Soon they discovered that the families of the Ngombe slum where the project started, didn’t have soap! It was too expensive. After purchasing soaps from the market, eventually the project expanded to training more of the mothers to make soap, also being paid.
This part of Sew Powerful’s project is what impressed me the most. That mothers are being given the means to earn money that can mean the difference of their children being fed or not.
when I heard Sew Powerful  were to have a stand at the Festival of Quilts, of course I offered to help.

I met Jason and Cinnamon from Sew Powerful, Sandy Simms UK rep, and also Ginny who has been making purses with her sewing group. (I forgot to get a photo!) I gave a big pile of fabric to Ginny for a sewing day she was organising for the 3rd of  August. UK made purses can be sent to Sandy Simms.

Part of the project to keep the girls in education is to have people who quilt or sew to make cross body bags/purses. Then they are collected and with the help of World Vision are taken to Zambia to be filled with the items (including 2 pair of pants) and given to girls in their health class. The whole project has grown to include providing the kit to girls in other schools in the Lusaka area.
Last year 6,000 purses were sent. This year they hope to send at least twice that amount.

If you are interested, you can find out more on their website. 

Sister Artists

The last few weeks I have been making progress with the Sister Artists embroidery from Mali.

 I wanted to give some texture, so I decided that kantha stitch would work if I did it in white. I used pearle cotton to fill the people and the birds

And I used scraps from one of the Tanzanian fabrics I used in another project in order to build up the ground for the garden. I want to tell the story of a husband and wife. She’s digging the garden and he is protecting it from the birds.
I have been filling the background with kantha, but this time using white sewing thread. Some from Sulky I had left from another project. It has just a bit difference than normal sewing thread because it is a long staple cotton.