Hi and welcome 😊 I'm so happy that you've dropped by. There has been lots of learning going on - so it's a good week. The weather is cooperating and I'm spending time in the backyard - more enjoying than working in it, but it's all good!
Tibetan Appliqué
If you're wondering what is Tibetan Appliqué, you're not alone. I had never heard of this amazing art until I took Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo's workshop in Textile Artist's Stitch Club last week. It's a very ancient art which actually starts with making cording from horse hair! No, I didn't quite get into that. I don't think my poor hands and wrists could handle it! Thank goodness for alternatives.
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| The first piece of couched embroidery |
During the first week, we drew our image onto stabilized silk. Then we couched the cord following the lines of our image. I used hemp cording that I bought locally. There weren't many colour options. These cords are used mostly for making bracelets.
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| Couching the hemp cording onto the silk fabric |
For the Further Development part of the workshop, we create a composition with other couched pieces on silk. Then we cut these out, finish the edges of each piece and eventually stitch these down to create the appliqué piece.
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| The finished butterfly and the other silk pieces with patterns on them. |
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| The stitched leaves are ready to finish by turning the edges |
As I reviewed Leslie's work to write this post, I realised that there are no double lines of couching in her pieces. I don't think that I can removed the second line of couching in the fuchsia flower without it showing, (so I'm just not going to do that again! )😁
I've finished stitching the leaves. I used three different types of cording - one was the hemp cord, one was a heavier jute cord that really worked well and the other was perle cotton that I doubled. Now I know the difference. The perle cotton is squished down by the couching. It looks OK but I understand why cording is better. I love having an excuse to use my silk thread - it does a wonderful job of couching.
I'll be putting all of these together when each piece is couched and the edges are prepared.
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| Hemp, jute cording and perle cotton used as well as matching silk thread |
As well as being an artist and teaching this wonderful art, Leslie wrote a book about her experience. She spent 9 years with the Tibetan people in exile in India, volunteering and eventually as an apprentice to masters, learning to make fabric Thangkas. She wrote a book which is amazing - easy to read and so insightful. If you don't read her book, I recommend that you at least see some of her work on her website (in Related links below).
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| Threads of Awakening by Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo |
August's One Monthly Goal (OMG)
With a few hours to spare, I'm linking up to the August OMG link-up. By the end of August, I will have started putting together the "Healing Waters" panels quilt for my hubby. I'm not sure how much I'll get done but even pulling out and sewing up a few wonky strips would be a good beginning 😊
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| August's OMG - working on "Healing Waters" panel quilt |
What I learned
- It's taken me longer than usual to work on this project because I've spent a lot of time reading Leslie's book. 😊 (I'll be giving it 5 🌟!
- It's pretty obvious that cording is better than perle cotton.
- It turns out that there are lots of different types of cording. What I'll use mostly depends on the colours that I can find.
- It's important to leave enough space between pieces so that they can be turned under. That's why the leaves are two different shades of green!
- I was lucky to be given a large bundle of silk fabric already backed by stabilizer. These were originally obtained by cutting up silk blouses and such. You never know when you'll need them 😁
- I'll be finishing up the flower soon and then will start to prepare the fabric for stitching together. I guess you'll see how that goes in a future post. It's been much more difficult to turn the edges under - probably because I have a tooth/sinus infection that's making me very cranky and not at all patient. I expect to be on penicillin on Monday and will start to feel better (except for my stomach!)
- It was a great workshop and I hope that you take the time to visit Leslie's website to see her amazing art.
- I've been wanting to start on the panel quilt but everything seems to push it off the top of the list. I think that I'm nervous about it and procrastinating. It won't be difficult and if it's off, then the seam ripper is my friend!
Related links
- Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo website, Instagram. blog, book trailer
- Having Fun with Panels on Free Motion Mavericks, February 22, 2024
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Why not check them out after you've linked up below? August One Monthly Goal (OMG), Sew & Tell, Monday Musing, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Beauties Pageant, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2024, Oh Scrap!, Slow Sunday Stitching,
Free Motion Mavericks
We've had an incredibly busy linking party last week. Thanks so much for linking up! This is week 493 and we have many lovely quilts that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting to feature!
Quilting Gail had a few lovely quilts in the post that she linked up. Here is Julie's Quilt as well as her lovely "There She Blows", created for the Something Smells Fishy blog hop.
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| Gail's lovely Julie's Quilt |
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| Gail's There She Blows quilt |
Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts had a quilt pattern published once more. This beauty is Fireworks in Issue 59 of Make Modern Magazine.
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| Fireworks in Issue 59 of Make Modern Magazine |
We have Tula Hexies by Gretchen. What a lovely hexie quilt!
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| Tula Hexies by Gretchen |
Gretchen didn't FMQ her orange peels. She marked them onto her quilt and sewed them. There are many ways of quilting your quilts!
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| Details of the quilting on Gretchen's Tula's Hexies |
Kat of Scrapbox Quilts finished her yellow Lima Twin Quilt. She FMQ it with overlapping circles. It's very effective!
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| Kat's Lima Twin Quilt. with overlapping circles |
Sally from Crafts, Cavies and Cooking diligently worked to a deadline to get her "Birds of a Feather" quilt done. The quilt is really stunning, including the back! You'll want to check out her post to see details of her FMQ.
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| Sally's "Birds of a Feather" quilt |
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| The back of Sally's "Birds of a Feather" quilt |
Deb, the Scrappy Quilter, finished quilting a number of quilts in July. My two favourite are her two wonky log cabin quilts. The log cabin in scrappy fabrics really pops on her black background. I love her border for the second quilt.
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| Deb's variation on a wonky log cabin quilt |
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| Check out the border on Deb's wonky log cabin quilt |
Kathleen McMusing may have used her longarm to finish her Diatom Quilt but since she created some of her own quilting patterns and that it was very custom quilted, I wanted to feature it here. It really is stunning. The pattern is from Quilting Jetgirl and was part of a QAL.
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| Diatom Quilt finished by Kathleen |
Denise of the Quiltery has made a beautiful mini quilt, Nirvana as part of the Island Batik Mini Quilt Challenge. She writes about her FMQ in her post - you may want to read all about it!
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| Denise's Nirvana mini quilt |
It's now your turn!
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