Sew Karachi: Creativity pieced together at Alliance’s quilt work exhibition

The Piecemakers Guild hosts show featuring patchwork, Croatian embroidery

KARACHI: Creativity, imagination and hard work come to surface at Alliance Francaise de Karachi in the form of an exhibition featuring quilts.

The Piecemakers Guild hosted the opening of 'The Sew Karachi Quilt Show' at the Alliance Francaise on Wednesday. The show, comprising works such as 'Jashn-e-Bahar', 'Starry Night', 'Wonders of the Sea', 'Pinwheel Mosaic' and 'Harmony', is set to run till Friday (today).

The Piecemakers Guild is a group of 15 friends who gather at one of their houses and cherish their mutual love for patchwork, Croatian embroidery and vivid colours, all weaved creatively into quilts. They help each other with ideas, material, spools and techniques.

The three-day exhibition featuring throws, tapestries, bags, baskets and table mats brings out the cheerful, abundant use of colour and imagery that is in line with the extensive talent that Karachi has to offer in its every nook and corner.

The Piecemakers Guild president Heer Sharif, who is a textile designer, told The Express Tribune that the group came into being eight years ago. "We hold an exhibition every two years and this time we have also set up a small collection for saleable items."

After the show, Sharif also won the first prize for her quilt creation titled 'Ugly Betty'. It comprised patches arranged in a way to form a face based on the main character of the American show of the same name.

Moreover, she secured the second position in the 'Challenge Quilt' category for her work titled 'Time for a Vacation'. In this category, all participants reproduced a certain scenery, setting or image from a magazine or the internet.

Sharif said the three judges, two Kuwaiti-Pakistanis and one Karachiite, are professional quilters who judged their work. "In addition, we have also arranged a box for visitors called the 'voter's choice'," she said. "People can give their feedback on the ones they like the most."

While all the quilts are nothing short of wonderwork on display, Nida's 'Rainbow' piece earned the 'Best Use of Colour Award'. "We all work with fabric exchange," said Nida while talking about her piece. "I had all these bits and pieces of different colour and could not decide how to use them. Then ideas began to fit in and this came out as the final result."

Nida, a Taiwanese girl who has been living in Pakistan for the last 20 years, said she had seen her mother doing quilt work in her childhood but had never tried her hands on it as she was very young at the time. "When I started working here, all of that came rushing back to me," she said.

Another active member of the guild, Maria Sheikh, said she finds the work extremely stress-relieving. "It is a therapy for all of us," she said. Having her skills set in sewing and Croatian embroidery, she said she had no prior experience in quilt-making but learnt along the way from her friends.

Maria has revamped the traditional rilli [Sindhi embroidery] in her work. In her 'Baby Rug Quilt', she has made use of appliqué and frills and, with the use of hand and machine sewing and soft pastel colours of blues, greens and mauves, given it the perfect tone for baby use.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 3^rd, 2015.