The Rajasthan inspired bed cover. A mood board.

I suspect that this will be work in progress for quite a long while. Hence the project has it’s own page.

Having recently retuned from Rajasthan, I am inspired to create my own bedcover, based on some ideas derived from Rajasthani patchwork. The creation is at mood board stage at the moment, although I am beginning to accumulate the ingredients for the cover, and have started to practice some new crafting skills that will be incorporated into the finished item.

So I really do have a board, although it is not that picturesque!

During the course of the project I intend to make use of the following skills:
Patch work
Lino printing, based on a design in Bikaner fort
Digital printing, albeit that would be outsourced
Block printing, with blocks bought in Udaipur

I have never used any of these skills before, so there is much preparation and testing to be carried out over the coming months. To also add that, unlike my work ‘on an Indian theme’, this is just Indian inspired. The materials can come from any source, and indeed, most will be British. In particular, the finished item must wash in the washing machine, so colour quality control is important.

This is one of my inspirations for the patch work. I did visit a patch work workshop / gallery / shop, and discussed the origin of much of their fabric for the patch work. It comes from old embroidered outfits, and sometimes (but not in this example), the shapes of the pieces are retained in the design.

I noted the ‘binding’ used to divide the patches. It is like thin cord with an occasional running stitch across the cord. This seems to be consistent across the Rajasthani patchwork that I saw. It would be one of the last things to do. We’ll see if have the patience by that stage.

Meanwhile, I have purchased some suitably coloured fat quarters to use for the ‘background’ patch work. Here they are laid out on the bed to give me some idea how much I have purchased in relation to the area to be covered, and to check the appropriateness of the colours. So far so good, but a long way to go yet, including much calculation about the size and shapes.

And in terms of a basic layout of the background patches, this is my starting point, although I had not even had the idea at the time that I took this photo in Bikaner Fort. Which basically means that I intend the patches to be diamond shapes. The scollaping would be too difficult for a first attempt and unnecessary.

Although also derived from Bikaner fort, this is not the basis for the idea for the lino printing. I didn’t take a picture, but I can clearly remember the design and it is sketched on the board. It will be based on ‘Monsoon’, a design seen in one or two places based on dark blue skies and amassing clouds; and reminding people of the relief to be brought when the monsoon arrives each year.

The digital printing part only came about when visiting an exhibition in Britain, but the photo below is a much better representation of the ‘tree of life’ than I could ever applique. I saw several examples of duvets and covers that incorporated a ‘tree of life’, but consistently resisted the urge to buy, as I somehow intended to make my own.

Obviously it needs much of the edge of the picture removing, and probably a bit of photo-shopping in the lower section, but I will discuss that with the printing people when I get that far. Their card is on the board. Its an idea, and at the moment, and I like the idea.