Painting with the needle

October 07, 2016 04:49 pm | Updated November 01, 2016 11:37 pm IST - TIRUCHIRAPPALLI:

Cross-stitch tapestries make this Tiruchi residence stand apart

This intricately-worked tapestry took six months to complete, says Mrs. Damayanthi Kangaraj. Photo: M. Moorthy

This intricately-worked tapestry took six months to complete, says Mrs. Damayanthi Kangaraj. Photo: M. Moorthy

With nearly every wall decorated with a work of art, Damayanthi Kanagaraj’s home in Ramalinga Nagar, Tiruchi, has the air of an informal gallery.

Reproductions of the Mona Lisa , an English hunting scene, a barrel of apples and a woman in Victorian costume reading … each of these draw the eye to the cool interiors of the house, banishing all thoughts of the evening heat.

Look closer, though, and you’d see that it is not paint but thread that is the artist’s medium. The wall-hangings are cross-stitch tapestries, each one painstakingly created by Mrs. Damayanthi since the 1990s. “My mother taught me dressmaking and embroidery, so I have always stitched my own sari blouses and other clothes,” says Mrs. Damayanthi.

She is also an expert in machine and hand embroidery.

The love for sewing and embroidery that she picked up while growing up in Sri Lanka, where her father ran a small general goods business, has stayed with her well into her own life as a homemaker in Tiruchi. “When the design is there, it is quite easy to start. But you have to count and stitch correctly. If even one stitch goes wrong, you have to correct it immediately, especially when you are doing the hands and facial features,” says Mrs. Damayanthi. The most elaborate counted threadwork embroidery she has done, is that of the Victorian woman reading a book. The play of light and shadow on each fold of her dress, besides the tonal variations of her complexion have all been ‘painted’ with the needle.

Her favourite picture, though, is that of three women in a verdant surrounding, done in half cross-stitch.

“This picture has 30 colours, and some 4 shades of green, 8 shades of pink, and so on,” says Mrs. Damayanthi. “It took me six months to complete.” Considering the fact that she had assembled 9 strands from one and a half skeins of embroidery thread each time (for better coverage and depth, says Mrs. Damayanthi,), that does sound like a lot of hard work.

“I got interested in making these big pictures when my husband and I were based in Mumbai. We had left our three children behind in Tiruchi with my parents, and I used to have a lot of time, because my husband, a textile engineer, would be away at work for much of the day. My neighbour helped me to get started on the tapestries, and then as we built our house in Tiruchi, I planned the placement of each of these pictures,” says Mrs. Damayanthi.

She has lost count of the time and money she has spent on her hobby, but the results are definitely eye-catching.

Though advancing years have made her give up cross-stitch, the veteran needlewoman always remembers her days of sewing the pictures fondly. “It’s a great way to switch off from the world and relax your mind, even if you do it only for half an hour in a day.”

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