Nandi - Clay work

September 1, 2019

Art has fascinated me from childhood. As a kid I would draw and make simple greeting cards. When we use to go to my grandmother's place, I would take out all the wedding invitation cards and save those beautiful Ganeshas on them to draw. None of those folks would know that I cut the Ganeshas out of their wedding invitations before the cards go into trash. I must say some of them really spent a lot of money on those invitation cards. Then there was stencil and spray work, the wall hangings we made by bending the glass bangles, the modern Aipan where we would spend hours sitting at the Dehali (the door threshold). This blog has the most recent sewing crafts that I also learnt as a kid watching my grandfather, aunts and mother do. All my life I wore clothes mostly sewn by my mom or aunts. I bet they could open an etsy like store if they accepted their talents.

I joined a clay sculpting class recently where we make Indian clay art - specifically Hindu god sculptures. I had been thinking of taking this class since last 2 years but the time commitment didn't just fit in earlier.

As part of this 3 months class we meet weekly for 2 hours (so far every time the 2 hours got stretched to 5 hours) and then do our work at home. We are making 2 sculptures. This is the first one we made - Shiva's Nandi. Preview of the second one in the end. This class isn't about just doing some clay sculpting, you learn the basics and the science of how these temple sculptures are made. The different standards that are there and how the rocks (if they are sculpted on rock) are picked for each idol etc. The class is a mix of elderly and young folks including a good gender balance. The version below isn't the final product as we would be making the Nandi sit down. The ornaments on the feet are also missing right now if you noticed.

Here is how it looks so far. Completely immersed into the second sculpture so will get back to it in between that. It was interesting to see how much focus one needs to do anything in this work. One of the days I tried to multi task - listening to something while doing this work and it turned out to be a complete disaster. From then on I put my phone away and just focus on it. Will be updating this once the sculpture is finished.



This picture below is how we receive feedback. Notice that a lot of details including the Nandi head is missing in this. Yes, had to remove that blue line of bells after spending a good amount of time making them and putting it on the Nandi.



Adding a few more pictures of the Nandis carved on rock. I don't think I could get it any close to these but I am content with my Nandi.

[Update: Jan 1, 2020]
Here is how the completed Nandi looks. It has found a nice spot on my book shelf alongside the Shiva.






We are sculpting a Hindu God as part of the second sculpture. Below are the hands I made for the chaturbhuj bhagwan. Note how I have not made any mudras yet, bending those fingers is tough without breaking them.

Single Bed Quilt

Yet another bed quilt! This post has been in draft since almost a month. Made this quilt last year in November. The plan was to utilize all the scraps and make a quilt out of it. I used some of the old scraps along with new cloth. Since I haven't learnt free motion quilting yet, this quilt also had to do with the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting. I took it to India and now Mom has kept it for our home there. I had bought all material from Walmart. 

Some stats: (I modified the dimensions in between and did not keep track of all of them). 

Desired finished size:

50" * 90"        

Blocks:

8 * 17     

                     

Block size:

5.5" * 5.5" (finished)

Each block needs:

• 1, 5.5" * 5.5" piece of white/light fabric.

• 2, 3" * 3" pieces of colored fabric.

I bought these fat quarters to use for colored squares.

This is how I made a single block:

Sew the 2 small squares (placed wrong side up) on top of the big square (placed right side up) as shown in the pic on the right below. Then cut the triangle (as shown) leaving a 1/4" seam allowance.

Note that you will waste triangles with this but then those are very small and probably can be used for other purpose but this makes it a lot easier and quick to make so many of these blocks that are needed.

Bed Cover with Matching Pillowcases

This is the first quilting project which is going to remain with me. I sent all others as gifts to family and friends. Yes, I made this for my bed and happily sleeping on it since then. 

I picked 5 patterns. I bought them all from joann. I have to say that fabric at joann is expensive and there is a chance that you may not get the same pattern if you want more of it later, which happened with me and thats why the patchwork on the panel. The design is simple. It took 2 days to complete it. 

The number of blocks of each pattern are:

1: 24
2: 24
3: 23
4: 22
5: 27

and the yardage is:

1: ⅞ yd (24)
2: ⅞ yd (24)
3: border + 23 blocks: 2yd
4: ⅞ yd 22 blocks + binding
5: 1 yd (27)

Batting: 2 yd (fabric 90 inch width)

Backing: 5 yd

Backing and batting were bought from walmart. I was already a bit terrified by the amount I had spent on the other fabric from joann that I just bought the cheapest fabric for backing :) By now the lady who cuts the fabric at walmart recognizes me. She asks me what I am making every time I buy stuff there. 

Finished size: 72" * 90"

Pillowcase size: 19" * 25"

Block size: 7" * 7"

10 blocks across the width and 12 blocks across height. 

The total cost of came to around $65. A bit expensive and I love it on my bed!

I never knew making pillowcases can be that easy. For the size I mentioned, I had to cut 3 pieces:

20” * 26” , 20” * 15” , 20” * 15”. 2 of them are for the back and the bigger one is for the front. I searched for tutorials online (pillowcase with envelope). This one also looks good.

I met someone at work after the meditation session who had a quilt with them and we just started talking. After our talk, I was told that the combination of engineering, quilting and meditation sounds perfect on me and I had to say that I love all of them :) I guess I need to get back to my engineering side now. I will be back with more stuff in few months.

Baby Quilt

This was my second project. The plan was to make this first but then I decided to make some quilted coasters as for practice and of course getting that confidence again that I can get back to using a sewing machine after all these years.


Design:
I came across this design online along with basic tutorial.

Materials:
Along with the basic tools (scissors, quilting pins, cutting board, rotary cutter, ruler) and sewing machine I used the following:

Top: I bought a fat quarter (18" * 22") bundle which had 8 different fat quarters and 1.5 yds of cream fabric for borders and in between columns.

Backing: 1.5 yds light brown print fabric. Some of the fat quarters had brown shades so it made sense to get some light shade of brown.

Binding: 0.5 yds of dark brown print fabric.

Batting: 44" * 55" batting. You should decide on the loft based on your needs. I used an extra-loft poly-fill batting. Cotton might be easier to quilt.

Note: Seam allowance for all stitches is 1/4".

Prepare Top: 

1. Cut 2.5" * 5" pieces out of fat quarters for the print strips. Join 22 of these to form one strip. You can decide on the order of various prints according to your own taste of colors. Make 5 such strips.
2. Iron on the back seams to fold them all in same direction. Measure the length of the strip and say its L1.
3. Cut 6 strips of the cream fabric (cut along lengthwise grain) each of L1" * 3.5".
4. Join the cream strips and the printed strips in alternate order. 
5. Iron on the back of the joined fabric and move all seams towards the dark fabric side.
6. Measure the width of this fabric and say its L2.
7. Cut 2 strips (cut along the crosswise grain) each of L2 * 3.5".
8. Join these strips on top and bottom of the unfinished top.

Your top is ready now. Measure the length and width of the finished top after ironing the seams on the back. Say its L" * W".

Prepare Back:
I also used a strip of printed fabric from the top to create a strip at the back. Its optional though.

To decide on how many 2.5" * 5" pieces I need to stitch together to make it fit in the back width, I did the math: x * 2.5 - (x-1) * ¼ = W + 3. Cut 'x' number of 2.5" * 5" pieces and stitch them together. Cut 2 pieces of backing fabric as:
20" * W + 3"
(L - 4.5 - 17)" * W + 3"  [Note: we have added an extra 3" in length and width]
Join all 3 pieces of fabric in order (2 cut pieces with the top fabric strip in between).
Iron on the seams and over the complete fabric back. The back is also ready.

Prepare Quilt Sandwich:
You now need to prepare the quilt sandwich to quilt it. Lay the backing with wrong side up on a flat surface/floor. Lay out the batting on top of it by making sure that the back doesn't move or form folds. Finally place the top on top of batting. Usually you use some kind of spray adhesive to make the batting stick to the backing. I did not use anything. I just used lots of pins all over to keep the 3 layers intact.
Now its time to quilt all over so that the three layers are stabilized and also to make sure the batting won't move when the quilt is washed. I mainly used stitch-in-the-ditch all over. I am yet to get used to free-motion quilting. Will try on something smaller.

Add Binding:

Once the quilt is done, its time to attach binding to the sides of the quilt.

Binding:
5 strips cut cross grain of 2.5” each
½ yard