Sunday 14 December 2014

Kantha Embroidery

#kantha embroidery finished and now to turn it into a book cover. Started in a workshop with Angela Daymond #fenlandtextilestudio at the #WestCountryQuiltShow
Last month I went up to the West Country Quilt Show in Bristol. A fantastic show with lots of quilts on display and a variety of workshops to attend. There was also the usual trader stalls with lots of bargains .... But unfortunately not many people were there on the Friday that myself and QuirkyHannah visited.
I went to a Kantha workshop run by Angela Daymond from the Fenland Textile Studio. There was only two of us and Angela provided a wonderful bag of fabrics and a variety of threads.
All the fabric and lace, some of it vintage, had been dyed using natural dyes. These included red onion skins, tulips, turmeric, woad and one I might try ... Boiling fabric in an aluminium pan with a variety of berries. The aluminium from the pan fixes the dye.
Angela explained about the history of Kantha and how it was used to make a new cloth from old saris. Traditionally it is all running stitch with different areas of Southern Asia having a different style.
I found making this very relaxing as there wasn't a specific design to follow and the stitches don't have to be accurate or all the same length.
I love the texture of this #kanthaembroidery #lechallenge
I knew I wanted to turn this into a book cover, but unfortunately it wasn't quite big enough and so I added the extra red onion skin piece at the bottom left and also the piece above it. I use a random cross stitch with some beautiful threads which I bought from the Cowslip Workshop christmas fair. The threads are hand painted to make them variegated in lovely colours. I used an old shirt for the inside of the cover and decorated it with some rarely used machine embroidery stitch. I added the lace as I can then tuck extra bits and pieces inside the cover.
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The theme for Le Challenge this month is Ink and so I'm linking up with Nat and Lucy.

10 comments:

  1. Beautiful kantha stitches! It makes a gorgeous book cover and nice way to tie in the ink theme! Thanks for linking up :)

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  2. I love the way you use the Kantha stitching, This makes a wonderful book cover!

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  3. I love your book cover. I'm really interested in kantha embroidery as it looks like a relaxing way to stitch something largs like a throw. Were you stitching on a single piece of fabric or were there more layers?

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  4. I love this piece. It inspires me to try and make my own

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  5. Really love how this has turned up. The rabbit and mountains especially effective :) Might have to add it to my to do list for next year!

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  6. It's gorgeous, and love the bunny, it kind of reminds me of Australian Aboriginal art

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  7. This is so beautiful. Hand painted threads caught my attention especially. And the kantha stitching reminds me of my childhood in India - it is such a gorgeous technique. Enjoy your new bookcover :-)

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  8. having seen this on your ig I couldn't wait to check out your blogpost. I really really love this, the hare (I love hares) and the embroidery (I love that type of freestyle embroidery). There is so much movement in the hare. I will definitely be trying this myself. A very interesting blog post

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  9. love how you used this piece xx .. even more that you DID use it x shame the show was not better attended .. hope you managed to find something to spend some money on x

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  10. Love that technique! Thanks for sharing on le challenge!

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