Kantha is popular in South East Asia and features the running stitch. Kantha work has a story or narrative and people develop their personal motifs. It's often worked communally.
Key themes in Kantha
Some of the features are the personal motif, as mentioned, border patterns, puckering, a sense of personal meaning in the fabric, using thread to make connections between one part and another.
I decided to use pieces I'd already made using dyeing, screen and block printing. I didn't like any of my dyed pieces so had no sense of personal connection with them but the printed samples were ones I quite liked.
Here is how it went.
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| The stitch goes for a swim around my tie dye. |
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| Really don't like this piece but I persevered. |
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| Amarjeet suggested I take the spiral stitch out onto the rest of the piece to unify it. |
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| Just a small bit of running stitch added to a couple of samples to join them together. |
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| A couple of samples from another class (trying out opaque screen printing and puff medium) |
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| Cut up and reassembled. |
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| The work to join nit up starts. |
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| Using both the shape of the birds and the pattern on the background fabric to inspire where the running stitch should go. |
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| Class work - some great ideas. |
Some great inspirations
Suggested by Amarjeet:
Debra Weiss - I'm always drawn to patchwork reuse of textile scraps with overlaid stitch.
Christine Mauersberger - Kantha-esque stitch work as well as lots lots more. More here.
Arlee Barr - lots of natural dyes and reuse of textile scraps.
Dorothy Caldwell - dense stitchwork and reuse of textiles. Dorothy's website here.
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