Blogger’s Quilt Festival Spring 2012

A long, long time ago, in what I like to call ‘my first age of quilting’ I came across a reverse applique technique called Mola. I used to be in a local quilt group back in my mid 20’s. All the other lovely ladies were quite a bit older and I learnt a lot from them. I think somebody must have come along to a meeting with a book about it. It is very important in the culture of the Kuna Indians who live in the San Blas Islands off Panama, you can read more about this here. 
Anyway, I have always loved hand sewing and this technique appealed to me so I made a cushion cover. That’s it, in the photo above, but without the fish. I was also very keen on embroidering shisha mirrors at the time (all that ethnic stuff was very ‘in’ during the 90’s!), so I used these too.

The other ladies in my group were impressed and asked me to take a class. I think this was the first time I taught anything, and seeing as now I teach sewing all the time, it was probably quite a pivotal moment. I had bought a book about Mola which had some traditional patterns in it, including the cat above, which I made as a demo piece for the class.

I then began to teach Mola to some other local groups and made more demo pieces. This griffin was inspired by a tapestry/embroidery I had seen at Traquair House, a local stately home and the oldest inhabited house in Scotland.

This next piece is a bit odd, and the only way I can explain it is to say that it was part of my ’30’s crisis! I started it a few months before I turned 30. I was feeling very depressed about getting old (ha! now I am heading for 46 this seems hilarious to me!). I had been visiting local graveyards and this design was carved onto a lot of old gravestones. I was really drawn to it’s blunt honesty. No mucking around, just the truth – your bones are lying in the ground and your soul is floating upwards and the sands in the great timer of life are at the bottom.
I always choose my colours very instintively, and for this piece I chose very jarring, harsh colours (I think this is the only time I have ever used brown and jade green together!) which was obviously a reflection of how I was feeling at the time. I remember showing it to friends as I was working on it (I thought it was lovely) and they just gave me really funny looks! Once I turned 30 I felt great and totally embraced being a grown up (until I had my 40’s crisis that is!).

This next piece has a sadder origin and is still hard for me to write about. A terrible tragedy happened in the town of Dunblane (about 50 miles from where I was living at the time) involving very young children. My sons were 4 and 6 at the time and it affected me very deeply, as I am sure it did everybody at the time. I really felt so distraught I didn’t know what to do with myself. The only thing I could think of was to sew something and this design just grew in my head as I thought about what had happened. As I worked on it I felt calmer and more at peace. I felt that I was sending hope and love out in to the world with every stitch.

This piece was based on a design from a majolican plate I found in a book. I just loved the way the fish interlinked. But halfway through I put this aside and just stopped making Mola’s.

And then a year or so later I went on holiday to Menorca, which is a beautiful Island that belongs to Spain. In a little, funky boutique in a back street of Ciudadela (the old capital) I found a pile of actual original Molas. I was totally spoiled for choice but I picked out 2 to buy (they were quite expensive, and rightly so).

As you can see, they put my work to shame, they are so intricate, and must have taken forever! Here is a close up, the beautiful rainbow coloured running stitch around the bird’s head and the eyelashes were done by the original artist.

I loved owning these pieces of textile art from far across the atlantic but I didn’t want to just keep them in a drawer. So I found all the old Mola’s I had made and laid them all out with the original pieces I had bought. My son, Felix, was 10 at the time and had quite a big, bare wall in his bedroom. He liked the idea of a quilt made of all these colourful, graphic pictures to hang on his wall.
So I took apart the original cushion and added that strip of fishes. I finished the Majolican plate and added a sword (at Felix’s request!). And then I just needed one more piece to make it all fit together.

A trip to The National Museum of Scotland brought me more inspiration. I loved this tribal mask and jotted down the design on a scrap of paper. I added a few more shisha mirrors for eyes, just to keep my hand in with the technique! The snake’s eye is a shell.
Then I put it all together with black sashing and more reverse applique, revealing white circles beneath the black.

Instead of using wadding I used 2 or 3 layers of old cotton sheets as they do in parts of India. As there was still quite a few layers of fabric from the Mola technique the quilt has a very heavy feel.
I then hand quilted it VERY heavily, hopefully you can see this from the photo at the back. I just wouldn’t have the patience to do that anymore!

It’s a really unusual quilt and not something I would ever make now, but I love the history and stories inside it and the fact it holds these 2 original Mola’s. As I speak, Felix is back in India, on his travels again. He has left the quilt with me, and I love having it hanging in my sewing room, but I kind of hope he asks for it back again one day.
Thanks so much for listening to my very long story! If you have more time to spare, head on back to Amy’s Creative Side for more amazing quilty eye candy. Thanks so much for hosting again Amy!