With this bookmark I've been trying out the special Mola appliqué technique.
The Indian women of the Cuna-Cuna or San Blas Islands tribe of the north coast of Panama are famous for their use of a reverse appliqué technique with layers of different colors, each color being revealed as a bright outline when the layer above is cut away.
Original Molas often show pictorial or geometrical designs which mirror myths or everyday experiences.
There is no way to reach the expertise and mastership of these Indian women, what I am exploring here is just an attempt to learn more about cultural influences which enrich the work and the life of us all,
and I am so grateful for that!
I worked with three layers of fabric (typically two to seven layers are used), and here I have cut the first layer away and I hand-stitch the first round of appliqué. Since I have clipped the edges carefully this process of turning under the edges and sewing them down along the curves is not so difficult to perform, although I am being far from perfect at this. It helps to use a thread in the same color as the fabric that is being sewn, and it looks best if one uses very small hidden stitches.
In addition to that it's popular to cut open some small upper parts and to put under and fix new pieces of fabrics in new colors. Also some additional surface appliqué and embroidery (often in the shape of triangles, circles and small rounded off rods) are typically used to complete a motif.
In order to make a bookmark with my layers of fabrics
I added a white border to frame the motif,
I used a piece of sackcloth for the batting,
as well as a piece of yellow fabric for the backing.
Some embroidery stitches also served as quilting stitches to help to keep all layers from shifting.
The book shown here is a wonderful one:
"Native American Modernism", by Peter Bolz and Viola König,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Michael Imhof Verlag, 2012
The extraordinary painting is:
Peyote Princess, ca. 1975, by Beatien Yazz (Jimmy Toddy), Navajo,
Ethnology Museum Berlin
(click to enlarge a picture)
