Skip to main content

Finished

Made binding last night from a piece of ivory linen and sewed it on to finish the recycled linen quilt. I started this project on August 23, 2018, put it aside for a long break and then came back to it this summer. I’d say altogether it took about seven months to complete.

It’s been an intense experience all along. Making something this large without a plan was intimidating to me. I’m not a spontaneous soul so I had to fight myself most of the time I worked on it.

Some of the fabrics I chose for the top fought me as well. I thought the old white curtain with the eyelet lines would be a fun addition. It does look neat, but that fabric in particular did not want to be stitched. Most of the time I had to employ pliers to get a needle through it.

Old linen also frays and pills. A lot.

I worked exclusively with a limited palette of perle cottons and silk blends for the embroidery. This was the best choice I made; I think the threads held up beautifully with the often heavy needlework. The colors make the work look more cohesive, too.

Spending months slow-stitching this quilt helped me grow in many ways. I’m definitely more mindful now whenever I pick up a needle. I love being able to give new life to old fabrics. This gave me a chance to find out more about myself, too. If there was ever a visual expression of my soul as a quilter, this is it.

The quilt is pretty heavy, thanks to all the stitching and buttons, but it is a functional piece. I’ll be keeping it in the office for the cold season ahead. I give away almost everything I make, so I don’t feel selfish in keeping this one for me.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.
Post a Comment
Read more

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.
Post a Comment
Read more

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to...
Post a Comment
Read more