Pali Darwaza at Rajgad Fort—A Quilted Portrait!

Thread Sketch of Entrance Gate to ‘Rajgarh, Hill of the Kingdom’

Completed Quilt#2 in my 19th century wood engraving print series! 7” x10” The original print dated 1883, is 3.5”x5” and the image is from periodpaper.com.

The original wood engraving from periodpaper.com

The monument shown is, I believe, Pali Darwaza or the ‘first gate’, at Rajgad ” king of all forts “, near Pune, in Maharashtra, India. Rajgad, known as the unconquerable fort, has a history going back to at least the 15th century, but is best known because of its association with the great Shivaji, whose capital it was for over 26 years! Interestingly, this is a reverse image of the original monument, possibly because the original engraving on wood was correct, but when printed on paper, it got reversed. Look at this picture, from Wikipedia, taken from above, would you agree?

A Photograph of the Pali Darwaza from Wikicommons

Here is the reverse of my quilt, picture taken before I quilted the background.

I photoshopped the original picture to reduce the contrast and gave it an antique paper finish, before printing it on A4 size printer ready fabric sheet.

Tha sandwich was made with thin poly-batting and free-motion quilted with YLI Softouch ( black) and variegated Gutermann (sand) on Hasina, my Husqvarna Viking Topaz 20. I wanted to clarify that is not first thread painted and then quilted. Finished the edges with a simple zigzag ( which makes it eady to frame under glass, in case the recipient decides to) and a corner curled in to give it a dog-eared look! Here is a close-up!

Can you guess that you are going to see more of these thread sketches here?