Back in May I did the Making Zen retreat and one of the workshops was with Jennifer Strauser from Dizzy Quilter making a Kawandi style quilt square.
Apparently a Kawandi quilt has its origins in both Africa and India and is a hand stitched quilt made from scrap fabric, including silk saris. Basically you cut the batting, then the backing a bit larger than the batting and the top layer is assembled by turning under the edges of the scraps and sewing them down to the backing in a square spiralling from the outside into the centre. This distinguishes it from boro and kantha quilts which use straight rows.
Traditionally there are some little Phula flowers sewn to the corners, but I had no interest in doing this.
I duly made one Kawandi style square using scraps from my scrap bin and here it is, the front and back. I included a piece of silk Sari in here, some Japanese kimono silk, a piece of Victorian curtain, some Indian fabric of various types, some vintage fabric, and some regular fabric.
Having made my square I began to wonder what to do with it. I don’t like having things lying around with no purpose, so I thought I’d made nine of them, which would give me a little rug measuring 90cm x 90cm. A family discussion resulted in me agreeing to make it twelve squares, then when I’d done that, it was thought that 20 squares would be better. It went on and on (or so it seemed) and I finished up making it 30 squares, or a finished size of 180 x 150cms, which is so much bigger than I intended.
I used thin bamboo batting, some of which was pieced from scraps and the rest cut from a big piece I have. The fronts are all made from scraps, not as small as those used in the tutorial, but I couldn’t see the point in cutting my biggish scraps into little ones. I also veered away from the rectangles as is traditional and just used the shapes of the fabrics as I pulled them from my tub of scraps. It’s a magical tub by the way, it never seems to empty.
I used some pink crochet cotton size 80, which is very fine. It took nearly an entire reel to make the whole quilt, and it took me four months to make the final 30 squares.
Once I had them all I had to lay them out to get a pleasing layout, but in the end I laid it out with the backs facing upwards so that I didn’t have any fabric repeats next to each other. I’m incapable of a pleasing layout anyway. I numbered the squares from 1 to 30 so I knew the order of construction and began joining them.
I had no idea how I was going to join them when I began, but after a bit of trial and error, I decided that whip stitching them from the wrong side was the way to go.
Please note that the knots are supposed to be hidden inside the quilted squares but I was a bit hit and miss with this as you can see.
I thought it would take me months to join all those squares together but in the end it took just a few evenings.
Having put it together I felt it needed a label, which had to be hand stitched of course. I have a lettering stencil but in the end used my Cricut and a washable fabric marker pen to write on a piece of blue bamboo sheeting and then I backstitched over the top with some purple Japanese silk thread .
I chose “Hand sewn” as against “hand made” as I felt it was more descriptive of what I did. I stitched it to one of the backing squares.
I hadn’t even done a final press before my husband had it on our bed, which was not my intended destination for it.
I’m not convinced it goes with the decor, but that’s ok.
The way the scraps are assembled is quite random but I do enjoy looking at it.
I can hardly believe I hand stitched all this as I’m not known for my patience.
I’m having so much fun with my grandchildren, they really are a joy.
I wonder if they will inherit my quilt one day and wrap themselves in a granny hug!