Bojagi CBD

 CBD BOJAGI Art Quilt

Photo by David Leane, Photography by David

In 2014 I attended the Geelong Textile Forum, studying the technique of making silk Bojagi garments with tutor Catherine O'Leary. Bojagi is a Korean wrapping cloth. While the technique fascinated me I had no use for a transparent silk organza garment so I sold mine to anther student attending the forum. I still wanted to use the skills I had learned but utilise them for something very different. 

Bojagi jacket and hat

Every 2 years the South Australian Quilters Guild holds an art quilt exhibition called "Dare to Differ". I have previously entered this exhibition twice and you can read about the creation of my "Cityscape" quilt on this blog.

For the 2015 exhibition I chose to use the Bojagi seaming technique to create a map quilt showing a scale street map of Adelaide, the capitol city of my home state, South Australia.

This is the inspiration for my quilt. This is a photo I took of cracked window film. The film is on the rear and side windows of the Saint Andrews Hospital on Wakefield street in Adelaide. The way the film has cracked and split in the direct sunlight reminded me of a street map. There are several panels like this one and many of the patterns created by the sun are the same but with different amounts of crackling. 

This is a photo of my Bojagi jacket held in the sunlight casting a shadow on a wall. These two photos combined in my mind subconsciously and the idea for a Bojagi CBD quilt popped in!

 

outline drawing

colour pattern with trees

I traced a map of Adelaide and had it enlarge and printed to the full size that the final quilt would be so I could use it as a pattern.

The full size pattern and A4 drawing. Areas outlined in colour to distinguish parklands from city blocks.

The city blocks are made with a warm palette combination of red, burnt orange, gold, purple, aubergine, pink and dark turquoise shot silk.

The major roads which divide the blocks and parklands are made with a bright mustard silk.

Bojagi seams are sewn so that no raw edges remain. This works very well when the joining seams are straight but not so easy when they curve or change direction as a road tends to do. Fortunately, most of Adelaide's main CBD is a grid work of roads so it was easy to create the lower section. North Adelaide, the section above the Torrens River was more challenging. So for this section I chose to use the Appliqué Bojagi technique.

Completed city blocks waiting to be joined with roads.

City blocks have all straight lines sewn with traditional seams

I built each section row by row so that the horizontal roads mostly lined up with the adjoining blocks. I allowed a two inch seam allowance around each block so that the main roads could be attached later.

Adelaide's central CBD has 5 park squares forming a grid pattern. These park squares all have a major road running through the middle. Two of the park squares also have major roads surrounding them. These roads were too hard to construct using the tradition method so I used the appliqué method and folded back the seam allowance of the city blocks on either side. 

The park square was made by sewing an extra wide piece of mustard silk between two mustard strips. The pressed city blocks were stitched to either side and the excess fabric cut away from the back. The green park was appliquéd on top of the mustard and the mustard underneath the park cut away.

Adelaide CBD missing the train lines and border roads

North Adelaide with the vertical and border roads missing

To add to the depth and interest of the quilt I included printed text on 5 key araes of Adelaide. West Tce Cemetery, Adelaide Golf Links, Rundle Mall, Victoria Park Racecourse and the Torrens River. 

I wrote up a page of info for each subject and printed it onto organza. These pieces were placed behind the white backing and can be read from the front of the quilt. I have included a copy of the text under the heading of the subject.

VICTORIA PARK RACECOURSE

The Racecourse track and inner surface has been appliquéd and cut away, then hand embroidered with thick variegated threads for texture.

decorative threads used to hand embroider onto the racecourse track

Text on organza
Victoria Park Racecourse was used as the home course of the South Australian Jockey Club until 2008. The 2,360 metre long main track had the longest home-straight of any Australian horse racing track.

The park remains one of the venues for the Adelaide International Horse Trials.

Part of the Adelaide Street Circuit was built in the northern portion of the park. Temporary grandstands and other facilities are erected whenever motor racing events are hosted there. The circuit hosts the Adelaide 500 and formerly staged the Australian Grand Prix from 1985 to 1995, and a one-off Le Mans series event, the "Race of a thousand years" on 31 December 2000.

The heritage-listed 1880s-era grandstand remains and will be refurbished as part of park upgrades in the future

RUNDLE MALL

 

Rundle Mall is the main shopping precinct of Adelaide. It homes all the major department stores and brand outlets. For this reason I chose to make it a little special by pleating the silk in two directions to create many blocked shapes.

Text on organza
Rundle Mall

Colonel William Light named many of the streets on his plan of the city after officials and businessmen who were among the first free settlers.

Rundle Mall and Rundle Street were named for John Rundle who was the original director and financier of the South Australian Company. In 1835 the company was formed in England to promote settlement of the new colony in the South of the Australian continent.

Prior to the action to close of part of Rundle Street in 1972 by then Premier Don Dunstan, Rundle Mall was already the home to most of Adelaide’s retailers with some buildings dating back to the 19th century and was burdened by a significant portion of the motor and pedestrian traffic in the city.

The Premier had the vision to create a car free shopping strip, measuring 520m from Pulteney Street to King William Street. 

Rundle Mall opened on September 1 1976.

Rundle Mall today has over 700 retail stores, 350 offices and service businesses, 3 department stores and 15 arcades spanning out from its hub. 

The most recognisable landmark in the Mall are the “Malls Balls” a 4m tall sculpture created by Bert Flugelman in 1977. “The Spheres” as they are officially know are stainless steel with a diameter of 2.15m.

4 bronze life size pigs also inhabit the Mall. Truffles, Horatio, Oliver and Augusta are officially known as “A Day Out”, sculptures created by Marguerite Derricourt and installed in 1999.

Rundle Mall is also home to “The Fountain”, originally cast in the late 1800s it has moved several times since its installation in 1908.

Painted in the colours of the Victorian era it is now located adjacent to the entrance of Adelaide Arcade.

WEST TERRACE CEMETERY

West Terrace Cemetery show in cream pleated silk

The cemetery was created by pleating cream coloured silk in rows of varying depths. the pleated rows were sewn in a grid and crosses were hand sewn onto of most pleats.

Text on organza
The State Heritage Listed West Terrace Cemetery was included in Colonel William Light’s original 1837 plan of Adelaide, dating back to the European settlement of South Australia. 

It is now one of the oldest operating cemeteries in the nation, occupying an area of 27.6 hectares (68 acres). It was originally known as Adelaide Public Cemetery

Among the more than 150,000 souls that have been laid to rest in more than 170 years of operation are the graves of renowned religious, political, business and social figures, as well as a diverse cross section of Adelaide’s inhabitants.

West Terrace Cemetery is still open for traditional burial or cremation memorial in the Wakefield Section. The Cemetery is bordered by Adelaide’s picturesque parklands, with borders of hedges, plantings of oleander, rosemary and cypress pines creating a charming resting place near the busy city centre.

West Terrace Cemetery is open to the public every day of the year, with a variety of guided and self-guided walking tours available.

PARKLANDS

The parklands surrounding the city of Adelaide are in green silk with light and dark green circles of silk cut out and stitched to the back of the fabric to represent the trees. 

Each circle was cut out with a scrapbooking Colozzle tool and a circle template. The circles were freehand machine embroidered onto the main fabric.

Tree detail shown from the wrong side of the quilt

RAILWAYLINES

The railway lines are stitched onto the quilt using a pattern I created on my sewing machine. The railway line is stitched over Glover Ave because there is a rail bridge over that road.

NORTH ADELAIDE

Laying out of North Adelaide parklands green silk

Torrens River winds through Adelaide separating North Adelaide from the main CBD. The river has been appliquéd onto the sections of North Adelaide in a vibrant turquoise silk. 

North Adelaide missing the vertical major roads and some trees.

TORRENS RIVER

The Torrens River is made with turquoise silk and cut to the shape of the river so it doesn't have the fold lines that the roads do where it curves around. In the image above you can also is the Adelaide Oval and the foot bridge which crosses the river in purple.

Text on organza
The River Torrens flows for 85 kilometres from its source near Mt Pleasant in the Adelaide Hills, across the Adelaide Plains, through the city centre, finally emptying out in the Gulf of St Vincent between Henley Beach and West Beach. Draining an area of 508 square kilometres, the river and its tributaries have a highly variable flow.

Discovered in 1836 the Torrens was named after Colonel Robert Torrens, chairman of the colonial commissioners and a significant figure in the city's founding. Being the most significant river of the Adelaide Plains led to the location of the settlement of the city of Adelaide. The inland bend was chosen as the site for the city centre

The Torrens upper stretches and reservoirs located in its watershed supply a significant part of the water to the city and metropolitan areas. During the early years of settlement, the river acted as both the city's primary water source and main sewer, leading to outbreaks of typhus and cholera.

The rivers native Kaurna name Karra wirra-parri.

GOLF LINKS

Text on organza
City of Adelaide Golf Links

North Adelaide was only the second public golf course of its kind in Australia. North Adelaide’s original golf course at Montefiore Park was officially opened on July 8 1905 by Lady Way, the wife of the acting Governor of South Australia.

Golfers on the original nine-hole course had to share the links with cows.

The North Adelaide Golf Club – the major resident golf club – can claim an even longer existence, some of its members having played together as early as 1890, under the name of the Providential Golf club.

On August 10 1923 a new Municipal Links course was opened in the Adelaide Parklands after much discussion over the location of the proposed site.

Golf became increasingly popular in the years following World War Two and the Municipal Links was crowded with players. Introduction of the 40-hour working week created more leisure time for people and many turned to golf as a pastime. This led to the idea of a second 18-hole golf course at North Adelaide, work on which started in 1950 and completed by May 23 in that year.

The Links, known as the ‘Municipal Golf links’ for 50 years changed its name on 26 September 1983 to the ‘City of Adelaide Golf links’.

Adelaide Golf Links is the closest course in Australia to a capitol city, with 3 courses offering a challenge for all skill levels.

Finishing Touches

According to the rules for Dare to Differ the finished quilt must hang from a traditional hanging sleeve and be constructed of a minimum of two layers. For this reason I was forced to add a backing layer to the quilt. This was very serendipitous as it led me to the idea to write the street names and a history of Adelaide on the white backing layer. Unfortunately I used two different white silks for the backing and the ink bleed a lot more on one than the other.

The backing layer is quilted to the front along the road lines and secured around the edges  by the binding. The backing also extends beyond the quilt from Wakefield Street to the top, creating a rectangle to support the odd shaped North Adelaide section. If I had sewn the hanging sleeve to the top of North Adelaide with out the extensions the lower half of the quilt would have buckled when hung. 

before the binding and white extension are added

 To keep the continuity of the quilt at the top so the white extension didn't look tacked on, I extend the roads from the borders of the colour out to the edges of the white. I did this in appliquéd white silk to give a shadow effect.

Exhibition Flyer and invitation

Resources

Silk organza from
Eastern Silk : 7 James Congdon Drive  Mile End SA  Ph (08) 8443 3333  easternsilk.com.au

Beautiful Silks. PHONE 03-55651882 or 0412742147.  29 Brown St, Allansford (near Warrnambool) 3277. beautifulsilks.com  

Large format digital printing Oz Signs

Vertical Horizons

As you are allowed to enter 2 quilts on the entry form I decided to create a second Bojagi quilt using the remaining silk organza. 
I was inspired by a satellite image of Adelaide and the surrounding areas. 
The background is made with the traditional Bojagi technique with appliquéd patches of silk on top.

I used reflective tape which is sold as a knitting yarn in the bobbin case of my sewing machine to stitch accents and join relief groups of organza squares. The tension was adjusted to make the tape look couched to the surface.

Finally to use up all the little offcuts and scraps I made a this small artwork

It uses all the trimmings from the Bojagi seams stitched with vertical lines in purple and pink with one line in yellow through the centre of the turquoise circle.