A couple of years ago I travelled around India and spent some time in Rajasthan. Wherever I travel I take hundreds and hundreds of photographs and very often I come home, unpack, stick the laundry on and then don’t do anything with the images. Until, that is, when the 2018 Contemporary Quilters’ In Print challenge was announced.
The peeling, shabby walls of India tell their own stories and the walls of Pushkar were no exception. Wandering the back streets one afternoon, camera in hand, photographing anything and everything I took a series of images and it was these which were to become the starting point for my quilt.
This part of Pushkar had definitely seen better days - black mould crept across the once white walls, the paint worke was peeling and tatty posters and handbills were stuck everywhere. Graffiti spread like a rash. Much to the amusement of my fellow travellers and accompanying guides I often photograph graffiti. From Cambodia to Vietnam, Myanmar to India I’ve photographed a lot because, I don’t know about you, I think that when it’s in a script I can’t read, a lot of it, far from looking destructive, looks creative! The pattern of these words inprinted on the walls are telling stories often only know to the writer.
The peeling, shabby walls of India tell their own stories and the walls of Pushkar were no exception. Wandering the back streets one afternoon, camera in hand, photographing anything and everything I took a series of images and it was these which were to become the starting point for my quilt.
This part of Pushkar had definitely seen better days - black mould crept across the once white walls, the paint worke was peeling and tatty posters and handbills were stuck everywhere. Graffiti spread like a rash. Much to the amusement of my fellow travellers and accompanying guides I often photograph graffiti. From Cambodia to Vietnam, Myanmar to India I’ve photographed a lot because, I don’t know about you, I think that when it’s in a script I can’t read, a lot of it, far from looking destructive, looks creative! The pattern of these words inprinted on the walls are telling stories often only know to the writer.
If you’ve followed the blog for awhile you’ll know I often photograph doors, walls, windows and now graffiti! So out came the photographs (actually, on went the computer – isn’t that where all photographs are stored nowadays?) and these two images immediately caught my attention. I remember photographing them and being amused – Pink Floyd, playing here, right here in the back streets of Pushkar, really?! Absurd, but it tickled me that’s for sure.
As with all the CQ challenges there is a size restriction and for this challenge it was 100cm x 45cm in either a horizontal or vertical format. I tried both and ended up selecting horizontal which meant I had to modify my original ideas, but it made me focus!
First step was to fuse the two images, nothing technical, I simply printed them off onto normal copy paper, married them up and glue them into place and rephotographed them!
First step was to fuse the two images, nothing technical, I simply printed them off onto normal copy paper, married them up and glue them into place and rephotographed them!
This fused image was then uploaded to Adobe Sketch on my iPad. This app allows you to have different layers so I was simply able to trace marks, shapes and text . SSSh! No drawing required...
This whole cloth quilt is a piece of vintage linen. To create the rusty marks for the door I draped the fabric in a large plastic tray, the rusted objects (and we have quite a lot at the studio!) were strategically placed on the door area, as well as littered over the rest of the ‘wall’ surface and then I poured over black tea. It’s the black tea combined with the rust which gives the grey, black and finally rusty marks which I needed for the first layer of colouring. This is definitely a quilt of layers!
Once I’d rinsed and dried the fabric the door area’s rust marks weren’t as distinct as I’d hope for. Balancing nails on their head for the nail marks isn’t an easy task! What is easier is to dip a nail into pva glue, print the required mark and sprinkle with rusting powder before spritzing with a water /vinegar mix. The cup of ground coffee which had gone cold by this time was useful for adding extra colour to the door ‘wood’. Nothing goes to waste when you’re being creative!
Machine stitching came next to give structure to the door with hand stitching to blur the edges. Then it was time for another layer of paint. White opaque fabric paint, mixed with puff paste, was sponged onto the wall area and then heat set to expand – I was after that slightly blown, bubbly texture of old painted wall. The creeping damp was created by sponging over black fabric paint.
I’d already ‘traced’ the text in the Adobe Sketch app so it was a simple step to create cut file and send it to the Cricut for cutting as a stencil. A couple of test runs using copy paper were needed to find the correct size (the separate arrow was tricky!) before I then set it to be cut in freezer paper. The Cricut has been in the studio for quite awhile but it’s a struggle finding time to play with it and put it through its paces. We have it for making repeatable stencils as it’ll cut through a wide variety of materials so I’m sure that once I’ve figured it out it’ll be a brilliant tool to have at our disposal.....
Anyhow, freezer paper stencil ironed into place, it was time to add colour with Markal oil pastels. I over did the black slightly so then I had to used several cotton buds to carefully remove some. Curing takes a couple of days before I could start stitching. For a little quilt there was a lot of hand stitching to create the surface texture, thank goodness for tv box set!
I didn’t want a visible binding so chose to apply a facing to finish the edges. The last step was to apply, using red Markal pastel and a stiff brush, the red graffiti numbers.
Anyhow, freezer paper stencil ironed into place, it was time to add colour with Markal oil pastels. I over did the black slightly so then I had to used several cotton buds to carefully remove some. Curing takes a couple of days before I could start stitching. For a little quilt there was a lot of hand stitching to create the surface texture, thank goodness for tv box set!
I didn’t want a visible binding so chose to apply a facing to finish the edges. The last step was to apply, using red Markal pastel and a stiff brush, the red graffiti numbers.
I’m pleased to say it was juried into the In Print exhibition and you can see it at a variety of venues around the UK until spring 2019. At the moment it’s at the Forge Mill Needle Museum in Redditch and at the end of August it’ll be at the West Country Quilt and Textile Show, which is where I will catch up and see the whole collection.
Bye for now,
Hazel& Terry
Bye for now,
Hazel& Terry
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