Banjara Quilting or Embroidery

Bit of a gap since my last posting but I'm back on my course work now, module 11, the penultimate module of my course. Hope things go smoothly now as I am keen to get this course finished.

Module 11 concentrates on samples of types of quilting from India and Japan.  In addition I have to research how to care for quilts and most importantly get started on my final assessment piece - the quilt which I have mentioned here in earlier posts.

The sample I describe here today is called Banjara Embroidery.  It's included in the patchwork and quilting course because it's worked on layers of fabric and the embroidery stitches hold the layers together.  This also applies to Kantha Embroidery where layers of sari fabric are quilted together with running stitches.  Kantha is the sample I will do next.

The Banjara  were a nomadic tribe from Northern India and today they are more settled but still produce goods for sale to the tourist trade and also for their own use.  The embroidery is embellished with mirrors, shells, buttons, beads and simple stitches.  They use coarsely woven hand dyed fabric and heavy threads.  The colours are bright with no pattern.  They make skirts, bags, shirts and pouches.  To see the genuine article search for Banjara Embroidery on the internet.

These fabrics are my own which I dyed as part of an earlier module of my course. I have used the same stitches for this sample as the Banjara use in their work.  Embroidery stitches used are running stitch, chain, herringbone and shisha stitch around the little mirrors.

First I have quilted the three layers together with running stitch to form the base of the design. Then I embroidered a centre square using herringbone, cross stitch, chain stitch and running stitch.

In the picture you can see I added buttons to the corners but these continued to annoy me all the time I was working on the rest of the sample as they didn't fit with the images of Banjara work I had seen so eventually I took them off and added small beads instead.

The shapes used are often geometric and applique is used a lot.  So I appliqued some triangles and diamonds onto the base and attached with embroidery stitches using Perle cotton embroidery thread - some of it was heavier than others.

The shisha mirrors were difficult until I got the hang of it but once I had I loved them and want to do more, perhaps making more of the surrounding embroidery next time.

So I built it up a little at a time hoping to achieve a fair representation of the work these people do.

It is very time consuming but is a type of work that can be done while watching TV as it is not complicated (apart from the shisha mirror stitches which also need to be done in a good light). The sample is 10" square.