Monday, 8 October 2012
Thursday, 27 September 2012
Sunday, 23 September 2012
Friday, 21 September 2012
Mekong Quilts Designer
Liz Reece, an Australian designer, has worked with Mekong Creations for these
past two years. I had done some
collaboration work with her in Vietnam and Cambodia. She is now going back to Australia, after doing a major training session for
communicating with Cambodians through a set of dictionary of terms, mostly as a
customer communication tool and inter departmental tool. Our initial work in March was the
core for the final edition and the general response was very good.
Liz designed the Vietnamese Schoolgirls quilt, shown above, of schoolgirls in their graceful white ao dais.
All the best Liz, to your future
endeavours.
Thursday, 20 September 2012
Nepal: Quilts for Kids
In November and December 2011, Quits for Kids Nepal arranged a working visit for me at
Boudha, Kathmandu. Groups of women, at a
beggar camp near the Boudha stupa, were selected, to improve their skills in quilt
making. They already make quilts for the
purpose of floor and wall coverings for their bamboo huts as protection against
the cold Himalayan weather. The better,
heirloom quality ones are used as decorative bedcovers and to keep their
families warm. Quilts for Kids Nepal
buys their best quilts, and are sold to support their children through school.
Two
groups were formed: one, those producing Classical Quilts, the traditional
ones, and the other group was trained to produce the new Fancy Quilts. These
are reversible, filled with polyester batting, and of different designs and
borders.
The
women already had quilting skills, which were handed to them by their female
relatives. Most of them originated from
the Rajasthan – Punjab area, and so they also brought with them the traditional
warm colors of orange, red, purple, and hues in between. They tend to marry at an early age, so that
most of the women had very young children, who need medical care, and are of
school age. The alternative, if they do
not have support, is for these children to go out and beg in the streets.
Flashback
to the eighties: David and I were
married at the CDO for a civil ceremony, and Protestant rites at the Parsonage,
near Rabi Bhavan, in Kathmandu. Pema was
born at Patan Hospital, at Jawalakhel.
This was my first visit back to Nepal, since we left in 1988. My Nepali language skills suddenly all came
flooding back. That plus some essential
Hindi words made communication somehow possible,
although I depended a lot on Ravina, a high school girl and daughter/ sister of
quilters at the camp.
Quits
for Kids Nepal built a Sewing House, in a record 24 hours! The men helped to flatten the ground, place
bricks, put up stout bamboo support, split bamboo for walls and roof, covered
with a tarp, and we were ready to roll. James
the founder and director selected the linoleum, tarp, and other needs. James also selected the quilts to cover the
walls. The location is quite strategic,
next to the Worship House, and Guru-ji’s house.
The Sewing House was blessed by Guru-ji and a small altar installed near
the entry, followed by music and dancing to celebrate the beginnings of the
Sewing House.
Trips
to Indira Chawk brought back lots of memories of our ten years’ residence in
Kathmandu. Things have drastically
changed but it was still heartening to see still a few standing wooden Newari style
houses with the decorative eaves, windows, lintels, and roofs. Some of the popular temples and ponds were “hidden”
from view, since the building boom has taken prominence in this city. The sewing machine lane is still there, and
thank goodness it is close to the taxi stand at Ratna Park. An Usha foot pedal (treadle) machine was
purchased from there, together with a table.
The machine was not too difficult to carry, and Karma, one of the
quilters, took it upon herself to coil her shawl upon her head and heaved up
the table, perfectly balancing it and walking with a regular gait till we got
to the taxi stand. It was not so
difficult to find a sewing and stationary store for our rulers, paper, thread,
needles, pins and other needs. It was
the polyester batting which proved to be a bit more difficult, and after a
couple of tries I was almost ready to fly down to Calcutta to do batting
shopping. However, a kind gentleman from
a drapery shop told us about his cousin who runs a pillow and stuffing
business, sort of midway between the camp and town. It was such a relief to find batting sold at
that place, but they sold it only in 100 meter rolls, which was fine for
us. Again, Karma and her shawl-coil did
the trick to have the roll carried all the way to another taxi stand.
Pincushions
were novelties, and even the children came by to inspect these newfangled
things: we used fruit juice cartons, filled them with scrap cloth and batting. We devised dances, to represent the pace of
hand stitching and other steps being introduced (all hold hands, go three paces
forward, three steps back to the beginning line, regular steps to the finishing
edge, three steps back, and cut!). It
was important that actions, instead of words, were imparted to make a better
impact on them. Empty boxes to store
work-in-progress and tools, were labeled with Bollywood actress faces, to
identify the owners: none of the women can
read nor write save for one who when through high school, The face was used as
a pieced quilt top: the chin was approximately 5 inches
wide (outermost border), the lips 3 inches (pieced border), the nose 3 inches (inner
border) and the eyes 58 x 78 inches (center).
Stitches which turned south were chided as “going to Jorpati” and the really
bad stitching, “the thread has gone to Bombay”.
We had other games, all with the aim of improving their quilting
methods. It was great fun!
Here is the webside of Q4KN, and some info about its founder, James Hopkins. http://quiltsnepal.org/
Cambodia: More on Rumdoul
Work in Rundoul continues. In
March 2011, the designer for Mekong Quilts, Liz Reece, and I completed writing
a set of definitions used in quilting work. A common “language” is
necessary, for use of the quilters, trainers, organizers, and supporters of the
program. The quilters come from the village areas and most of them
finished only a few years of schooling. The trainers come from different
parts of the world and cultures, including USA, Australia, Belgium,
France, Vietnam and other places. Some terms are not well-understood because of
differences in the terms themselves. For example, “batting:” in the
USA is called “wadding” in other countries especially in Europe and
Australia/New Zealand.
A workbook for the kampong (village)
Group Leaders was prepared, in text and image format, to show the steps needed
from preparation to finishing of the quilts. Another workbook for program
officers, assistants and support staff was also prepared, to make their
respective functions clear and documented. The group leaders were
called in, and the Production Manager, Miss Hieu, in one of her numerous follow
up visits from Ho Chih Minh, helped to shape up the definitions and workbooks.
The KSB quilt model is now in full
production. “KSB” means Khmer Sunbonnet Sue, and Sunbonnet Sam.
These two are highly popular appliqué designs since the early twentieth
century. “VSB” or Vietnam Sunbonnet Sue and Sam, have been in the
main production design of Vietnam Quilts, the forerunner of Mekong
Quilts. KSB depicts the everyday wear of Khmer people, including a checked
hand-woven head scarf. VSB designs include the conical straw hat which is
distinctly Vietnamese.
After the Rumdoul visit, I took a
van ride headed for Phnom Penh, and David joined me for a few days’ stay.
We enjoyed the city very much: its temples, colonial architecture which in some
cases were well preserved, the museum and palace. This visit included a
fabric hunting exercise at the Olympic Market with the Phnom Penh sales
staff. We sampled some fine Khmer cuisine, and also took in the French
menus offered by good bistros and cafes.
Here is the link to a Mekong Quilts
catalog, produced in April of this year. A well-made browsable catalog!
http://www.mekong-quilts.org/doc/catalog%20Mekong%20Quilts%20-April%202012.pdf
Tuesday, 18 September 2012
Kathmandu: Fancy quilts blocks
These are 12 blocks for the village quilters to make the new series called Fancy Quilts. Each finished block measures 10 by 10 inches. The pieces blocks, 4 x 6 or 40 by 60 inches, are at the center. These are framed with three borders so that the finished quilt measures about 80 x 100 inches. We tried to stick to Rajasthan/ Sind /Punjab popular colors such as red, yellow, orange, black and white but somehow they were inclined to add a lot of blues and greens... The inner border should be about 2 inches wide, the "ralli" pieced border (called "frame") is 3 inches, and the outer border is 5 inches wide. It is finished with a "flower" edge, or "prairie points" a sawtooth edge result.
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