Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Old Feather Pillow

This is an original piece that I made at least a hundred years ago when I first started quilting. It was inspired by the Willow Ware china, and the dark blue is the first piece of fabric that I had ever dyed.
To achieve the trapunto effect:
1. I used a very cheap unwashed muslin on the back side.
2. I used a prewashed Kona cotton on the top.
3. I quilted the piece, and then I washed it in hot water. While the muslin backing shrank up, the top fabric did not. This gave me extra room to add all of my "stuffing", or fill, in the raised up areas.
4.I then slit open each area to be stuffed, filled it with a really soft polyester fill, and then I sewed it back together.
5. I backed the whole thing with another fabric.

The blue fabric is reverse appliqued by hand over the top of the white. I knew that if I did it the other way around I would get shading from the blue showing through the white. It was machine quilted on my faithful old Bernina 910.
This piece was selected as the Judge's Choice by Holice Turnbow, whose work I have long admired, at a conference and show in Duluth which I can't remember the name of (one of the longarm shows I believe).
This post was in response to Alan Kelchner's trapunto dilemma.