Molas
Here are some of the molas I’ve stitched in the past. I used Charlotte Patera’s old book, Mola Making, to do this wall hanging. I’m not sure when I made it, but the book came out in 1984, and I made it while the book was still fairly new. She has instructions for a little sampler wall hanging you can do in the back of her book which teaches the various techniques used in molas. All of the wall hanging is stitched by hand. I found mola making very enjoyable. There’s something very freeing about doing applique like this. Humor is a big part of mola making, and you’ll find that many motifs used in molas are quite hilarious.
This is the wall hanging I made. I know someone is going to ask, so I’ll tell you that the little American Girl sewing machine is a toy I bought a few years ago. I had a little sewing machine when I was a child, but it was thrown away, and I’ve collected a few since then just for the fun of it.
Toucan 1 Mola
After I made the wall hanging, began to collect molas, and learn more about them, I realized that I should have been more careful about the background for this block. The underlying fabric shows through the gold top layer too easily in photos. For some reason, it doesn’t show this badly in person. Anyway, I should have been more careful about that. The best I recall, I used mostly the colors that Charlotte did for her blocks. I probably only substituted when I couldn’t locate exactly the color she requested. I also learned that molas should have a lot more black in them than this wall hanging has. I learned that by observation later. Everything comes after the fact! The black makes the colors sing. Live and learn. You’ll notice the channel around the toucan here is quite simple. There are three toucans on the wall hanging. This is the only one with a berry in his mouth.
Toucan 2 Mola
This is one of my favorite blocks, and I think it turned out well because of the black on the breast of the toucan and around his eye. Those little “holes” in the surface fabric on the breast of the bird are the same as those I used in the corner star blocks. The little candy corn looking motifs in the background are another background filler the Indians use when they make their molas. You’ll see that the work on this toucan is more complicated. Look at the channels to see what I mean.
Toucan 3 Mola
This is the last of the Toucans. You can see that the background here is quite different. It has a large maze background. Also, this Toucan’s channels are the most complicated of the three. You could say that the main feature of this block is the channel work.
Front Butterfly Mola
This is one of Charlotte’s silly little butterflies. It’s the front of a butterfly. You can see his bow ties and his little face. There were lots of little narrow slits to make in this mola, but I learned to make them well doing these blocks.
Reverse Butterfly Mola
Here’s the little butterfly from the reverse. There’s no little face here, but the fill work makes up for that missing element. The Kuna Indians often use the front and back of a motif for the front and back of their blouses that these molas go on.
Alligator Mola
This is one of her little alligators. It was a lot of fun to do his scales. You can see that the background for this block is another large maze. The channels here are simple, but the design is the thing. You can also see some of the borders I did on this wall hanging. When I got to the corners, I wanted to do something special, so I stitched little five-pointed stars with channels, and filled the background of the corner block with tiny appliqued holes. You can see only a few of them. This is found on some molas, and I thought it belonged with the stars. I had to put the stars in because I was born in Texas, and stars creep into a lot of my work.
Mola Swan
This is another pretty simple mola. The channels are simple. The colors create a lot of movement in this block.
Puzzle Maze 1
Charlotte had you do a couple of puzzle mazes in this wall hanging which were fun to do. You started with one maze, and what you cut away from one became part of the other. So the mazes are the same and yet different. I remember I was dealing, literally, with fabric spaghetti until I could get the pieces interchanged and stitched down.
Puzzle Maze 2
This is the second of the two puzzle mazes. If you compare the two, you can see how they were interchanged.
Sun Maze
This is another little fun sun face puzzle. Again, the channels are simple. The design is the thing that carries this block, I think.
Bird Mola
This bird mola was another simple one to do. There’s only a single channel used on this, but there was a lot of cutting away inside the big parts of the bird to make more channels.
Bird Mola 2
I always thought this little bird mola looked almost prehistoric. This one is more complicated than the swan or the first bird mola in that there is more channel work here. I liked this design so much that I put it on some pockets for a vest I once had. I wore and wore that vest because it was comfortable, and I always got comments on the pockets.
Mola Border 1
Between the blocks, Charlotte had you add some additional border treatments to even the block sizes out. I found these fun to do, and I can see why the Kunas use them sometimes for the top border on their blouses and around the sleeves.
Mola Border 2
You can see the border I added to the wall hanging. This was my own idea. I changed colors in the border as I needed to, and it adds a lot of movement to the wall hanging. The colors seem to shift on you. The little red points came from a strip of red I placed over the black background for the border. Then I clipped and folded and stitched the points into place. I was very pleased with the way the border turned out.
The mola wall hanging is quilted less than probably any quilt I have ever made. The quilting is in the innermost channel of each block as I was quilting it by hand, and there were so many layers of fabric on the rest of the blocks. It was entirely appliqued and quilted by hand.
When I have time, I’ll try to photograph some of the few molas and trade molas I’ve collected. I love the designs, and I think some of them are so funny and charming. If you’re interested in my poor efforts, I hope you will look into working with some yourself.