(Guest post by Smita, one of the participants at the 'Blooming Nine Patch Workshop' @Bangalore, with an insider's account)
Here goes my first
foray into writing a blogpost, hope some of you taking the time to read this
monologue actually enjoy it!!!
Well it all began
with guru ma Tina Katwal announcing her 2 day workshop in Bangalore, needless
to say I didn’t bother to read the fine print (her form got mysteriously hacked
so I took it as a sign to just register and not question too much !!!)
Once I had
enrolled myself and Tina sent us a checklist of stuff to bring to the workshop, the excitement set
in and I called Nikhat , Pooja and my sis in law Sangita ( co-participants ) to
plan what else….. a shopping trip to buy what any quilter never as enough off ….fabric
!!!!
Pooja and I set
off to commercial street as we decided it was too hot to go to oklipuram, and
ended up getting ripped off in terms of price but we also had great chaat, loads of laughs and in my limited life as a
quilter I have found fabric and it’s price is never a deterrent to buying it
!!!
So I had all the
doo dads I needed to bring and in our enthusiasm we landed at Pooja’s door
bright and 45 mins early !!! It was so good to see our most generous and
lovable hostess who made us feel comfortable from the start and of course guru
ma is quickly becoming one of my most fave people . We spent a few mins hugging
and chatting and when I m around, shopping for fabric (Yes, I admit I have a
problem but hey, it is a solemn duty to support the market in these recession
times ;) ) So Tina handed over all the stuff we had asked her to get for us
from batting to fabric and she also got her own sewing machine, the gorgeous
black beauty for Nivedita to use as she didn’t own one .
We then had a
brief theory session on 9 patches how they are made , how they can be placed
and Tina tried to answer all our inane questions with a lot of patience !!!
We were then let
loose in Pooja’s kitchen armed with rotary cutters and June Tailors and some of
us managed to chip some rulers, break Tina’s cutter and yes, we even lost Pooja’s
cutter by the end of the day! I live in hope that it resurfaces in her pile of
fabric and if all fails, we will do what every one does when the going gets
tough.. we will go shopping for another cutter !!!! What say Pooja ???
We finally sat at
our machines and guru ma had us on a tight schedule that all strip sets should
be finished by noon on day one and nine patches assembled by the time we were
supposed to leave at 5pm that evening . Needless to say that plan was shot to
hell as we were 6 of us, 2 June tailors and 5 rotary cutters ( we hadn’t lost
pooja’s cutter then !!!)
Nikhat sensibly
took her parenphilia and stood in the living room and did her work quietly and
efficiently. Varsha was so sweet and confused the first couple of hrs as her
choice of fabrics, no of strips, all were different from the rest of us as she
wanted to make a bigger one and so till she figured out how much to cut it was already noon !!! Nivedita had no supplies so we all shared and it was sheer madness with 4 novices trying to cut 4 fabrics in
various lengths and numbers on 2 mats with 3 cutters and 2 june tailors.. all at
the same time !!
Needless to say we
worked in controlled chaos and used the times we were waiting to chat and plan
some more shopping trips !!! In the alternate reality that Pooja and I exist, we are these professional, brilliantly creative quilters, hence the need for
shopping trips in this reality !!!
We started stitching
finally around noon and then guru ma brought out her whip oops her seam ripper
most specially for me !!
A wee detail I may
have missed out to mention - the closest I'd got to sewing before this was
threading a needle for my mum, so although I had a ¼ '' foot, didn’t really know
how much a ¼” really was and so ended up with ½'' seams. And everytime I looked up, there was Tina brandishing the seam ripper
at me and me undoing my handiwork and restarting !!! It got to a point where I was measuring my seams after every 2" of sewing and ripping even
before she asked me to. That earned her nod of approval and slowly I was
getting closer to the actual ¼” , HURRAH one obstacle overcome !!!
We took a break
for some yummy lunch; Pooja had made some divine aloo and then it was back to work.
Nikhat had started chainpiecing her nine patches while Pooja and Sangita were struggling at their
respective machines . I felt like butting my head on the wall would have more
success than butting seams, but Tina and Nikhat very very patiently taught and
retaught the rest of us. Varsha seemed fine and not battle-scarred and worked
at her own pace on the gorgeous maharani of machines she has, whereas our poorer
cousin machines worked valiantly with us . I think she had a bentley to our
maruti wagon r ‘s !!!
5 pm came and went. Some of us stayed sewing till abt 7 pm and all the morning’s
enthusiasm seemed to have disappeared and disenchantment started setting in. I
had so much to do and was wondering how I would ever finish. Then Tina took all
of Nikhat’s nine patches and showed us on the design wall how it would all look
, and though I was amazed at how it actually seemed to bloom, I never really
thought I would get there.
I took all my
strips and machine and left for home (Nikhat, Sangita and I were travelling
together). We told Pooja and Tina that we would be back at 9 am to get a head
start the next day !!!
When I reached
home my back was hurting and more importantly I was heart sick and feeling
maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew. Shraddha, my 17 yr old amazingly
supportive daughter tried cheering me up. She insisted I take a break when I
wanted to start work immediately, made sure I had dinner and then around 9 pm
when I sat down to sew, helped me finish all my patches, She would stitch and I would
iron seams and cut, and between us we were done by 11:30 pm !!! By then I was
bone aching tired and I had also decided along with Sangita that I would stick
to 3 instead of 4 fabrics as we really wanted to learn basting , quilting and
binding .
We reached Pooja’s
place by 8:45 am on day 2 to find her door locked as she had gone to pick up
tina !!! Never let it be said we wasted time, we sat on the steps and Nikhat
showed us some of her work and we also learnt another way of quilting (ie
blocks are quilted and then attached )
Btw on seeing her
mum so weary and blue, my sweetheart of a daughter accompanied us the next day
and worked like a horse to help me and her aunt finish our quilts. Without her
and Nikhat’s help I really don’t believe I would have been able to do so.. so
thank you both wonderful people, I owe u ( btw Shraddha wants a piercing as her
guru dakshina and am awaiting Nikhat’s demand J )
When we entered
Pooja’s place our hostess surprised us by showing how she had stayed up and
finished not only all her blocks but all her rows as well !!!!
We started in a
merry mood again and I had my trusted lieutenant by my side so we were done by 6 pm . When I
say done, we managed to baste the quilt and I had quilted 3 lines under Tina’s
eagle eyes and the binding would have to be done later after all the quilting
was done .
I learnt so much
during these 2 days by far the most important was to work slowly , love the
fabric and be gentle with it and of course precision, precision and some more
precision !!!
Btw when I was
actually quilting at home I managed to stitch a piece of the table cloth to the
backing, a piece of the extra backing to the backing, went to remove it and
managed to tear the backing so that the batting stood exposed about an inch!! Thank God for Nikhat who patiently repaired all of it .
Tina showed us so
many tricks, was so generous with her tips and open in sharing her
knowledge. These 2 days showed me that
being generous, sharing and helping each other is a gift we were lucky to have
experienced and the bonus was all those great quilts which were made .
Nikhat took time
to bind my quilt and she did an amazing job ( I say amazing because while I
thought so, she seemed shocked herself how well it came out !!!) She helped Pooja too and has offered Sangita her support as well. I have attached some pictures of the quilt
and hope the love and effort shows through.
Btw the finished
quilt is 40" wide x 54” long.
So would I do it
all again?..HELL YEAH !!!! and if I have the same group with me next time I might
actually finish one all by myself and help someone else with theirs this time
!!!
- Smita
