Last updated Sunday 22 June 2003
Quilting with Julie
I have been wanting to start quilting for several years now. A good
friend decided that she also wanted to learn to quilt. We decided to
give each other a quilting class for Christmas 2002.
I decided that I wanted to capture the feelings of the water and
foliage of California in my quilt. Never one to follow conventions, I
decided that I needed to dye my fabric to get
the look I wanted.
The Creation of the Fabric
I created four fabrics to use for the quilt. Since I have not done much
fabric dyeing and I've never quilted I decided that I would start with
an inexpensive cotton muslin as my fabric. I played with different
techniques to paint the fabric to create texture and interest. My
results are shown below.
If you want to see more details on the creation of the fabric, click
here.
The Creation of the Quilt
I took a 4 week introductory machine quilting class. We started with
techniques for cutting and piecing our quilt. Next we learned how to
create our quilt sandwich and machine quilt our quilt. The final task
was to attach the binding and sleeve. I don't think this quilt will win
any blue ribbons, but I have learned a lot. The instructor gave us
hints after we finished piecing on how to pin to get nicer corners,
which I was able to use to make my borders line up nice. I need to
practice quilting with my machine to
get the right tension and needle selection for perfect machine
quilting.
All in all, I am very happy with the way my fabric and quilt turned out.
