I decided to make a quilt and then dye it. I have been reading C June Barnes' book, Stitching to Dye in Quilt Art and was taken with the concept. I put together 5 non-straight, about the same width, panels of cotton, silk and canvas fabric, with pieces of dark blue denim (cut off from shortening jeans) on the right and left edges. I used Shiva paint stick in orange and rubbed the wallpaper design onto the outside two panels of cotton. I sewed pieces of the vinyl onto the canvas panel and added some rivets. I used the buttons under the fabric and sewed them tightly like a yoyo, used the linen thread to gather some of the panels and added three strips of batting to the right side cotton panel as an embellishment. I layered batting and backing and finished only the left and right edges up to the denim, which is a single layer. The top and bottom edges were left uneven and unfinished. I slit the silk layer in several places to expose the batting and frayed the edges of the slits. I made sure the piece was not square, pulling the bottom right side askew and adding more rivets to that part to pull the eye across the piece. All in all, it looked pretty ratty, uneven, unfinished and a mishmash of whites and creams. I planned to dye it blue when the quilt was finished. Each panel was quilted through the batting and backing in a fold back and stitch method at the panel edge, until the last panel which was turned to finish. I quilted a few small sections with free motion quilting to add a little more interest and texture. The family reviews at this point were very subdued.
Here are a few pictures of the piece at this point in the process:
You will have to wait for the next step.
