I spent a little time on Pinterest exploring Kantha Embroidery. I saw several things that were interesting. I saw some raw edge simple kantha embroidery that interested me. It looked like the strips had been torn. I didn’t want to do that, because when you tear cotton, it can get really distorted. Talking with my BF, she suggested cutting the strips and then washing them. So that’s what I did. I free-cut a lot of strips of mostly neutral fabrics. And then I put them in lingerie bags and washed them. I was surprised at how frayed they got even in the lingerie bags! Then I prepared a quilt sandwich with muslin on both sides and a cotton batting in the middle. I hand basted it, and then started. And here is the finished product. It was very fun to do.
When I looked back on Pinterest, I noticed that something like this was called Japanese Boro quilting…
Here’s a close-up so you can see how I did it. On each piece, I quilted all the way through on each side so it would be quilted. On the stitching in between, I just went through the top and batting.
Then I saw on Pinterest a very complex Kantha Embroidery. I kept that on my iPad for a long time. It was more complex than I really wanted to do, but it intrigued me. So finally I drew something and put that on cloth with the blue marker and started my own embroidery. I am enjoying working on this.
Here’s the blue drawing. As usual, I will add more as I go along:
And here is what I’ve done so far:
Close-up:
Also, I finished that “Parable of the Seeds” rug. It is about 24″ X 26″. This is the fastest I’ve ever finished a rug. It was simple and very fun to work on.
And here is a shot of my garden for those of you who don’t read my other blog:
Its time to clean up the studio! And organize my rug wool. Its getting out of hand!
Love this. What kind of thread did you use? Thanks.
I mostly use #8 Perle cotton thread.
I love the new piece with the neutrals. I understand you made a muslin quilt sandwich and then did you just add the pieces to the top one at a time? When you mentioned you quilted all the way through on each piece, I get that, but what did you mean by the stitches in between that don’t go all the way through? Thanks for posting your work!
Yes, I just added the pieces one at a time, or sometimes several at a time. They had to overlap by just a quarter inch or so. I pinned them in place. The reason I don’t go all the way through with most of the stitches is because it is more pleasant to stitch that way.
I love how you see an idea for inspiration and run with it, doing it Debby-style. The new quilt looks really nice!
You seem to be in a floral phase, with your new embroidery design and your latest rug, which wow, you’ve finished it already!! Nice. It seems like you didn’t stress much on this one deciding how to do the animals/what color to use. It’s fun to have a super relaxing project like this once in a while…or for me, allnce in a while. 😉
Beautiful ( the rug and your stitchery;) Thank you for sharing