Special Interests Quilt, 2022
Quilt - Calico, Bandana Binding, Printed Felt and Embroidery Thread, 71.5cm x 73.5cm
I’ve only gone and finished my second quilt!!!!! I couldnt be happier! Let me take you on a journey of how it all turned out and how the design process progressed. Its been a rollercoaster! It all started with ipad drawings of different patch block designs, for me to familiarise myself with how they all come together and easily experiment with compositions. I had a certain colour palette to use up from the cheap bandanas I had bought off ebay to practice with, these colours were reds and pinks with purple too. I loved this simple repeated triangle design and wanted to create the biggest patchwork I have yet to date, so i chose to move forward with these colours and set out cutting all the squares.
I had already gotten some printed felt with my ipad illustrations on, these in particular were about my Autistic Special Interests including buildings, art, design and sex/pleasure. I cut them out and laid them on the patchwork once it had been stitched together, all of the 21 motifs fit nicely on the space and the size worked well in harmony with the back ground patchwork. Once I had attached the felt motifs with black thread, I embellished them with shiny thread detailing. I didnt want to put too much so I added a highlight to the red thread and lightbulbs, as well as some on the hearts and sparkles on the phone and finally I added purple felt paint splashes and used colour variant thread to attach them. I like how there are multiple uses for thread on this piece, not only holding the patchwork pieces together, but attaching the motifs and adding detail to them on the surface.
As I had already mainly done the triangular tie dying I thought it would look amazing if I made a piece to match the colour palette of the front design. I bought a stash of cotton bandanas to use for patchwork and I thought it would be a nice subtle detail to make the binding from some of that material. I had never made binding before but luckily Mum taught/helped me. We cut the fabric diagonally so that it is the most stretchy, I then stitched all the pieces together to create a really long and thing strip. Next the entire strip is ironed, folding each edge into the centre of the fabric strip, it was quite fiddly and hot using the iron while folding it but it was actually satisfying in the end. As it was my first time binding I ended up making some mistakes which really knocked my confidence and momentum I had built to finish this piece (after weeks of boring resting from fatigue/pain). Mum was like those mice in Cinderella, before I had woken up the next day Mum had problem solved, figured out how to fix it and then set me up for the final step of invisible stitching the final edge of the binding. I know that mistakes and failure are part of the learning process, but in that moment my brain was hurting and I was spiralling and stressing out. Im so lucky and blessed to have Mum, shes so special to me and I couldnt have done it without her.
With patchwork and quilting there are so any parts to the process. The actual quilting part is putting together all the layers and sealing them with stitches. The layers are quilt top (in most case made of patchwork), then internal quilt batting (a soft woolen material to make your quilt cozy) and finally the backing fabric. This is all sealed with binding around the edge and stitches all over the whole piece to keep all the layers fixed together neatly. I didnt want to add any busy stitching to distract from the design so I went for small, subtle cream lines along the seems of the patchwork so it blended in nicely. On the back a subtle pattern of small cream stitches works well with the tie dyed fabric.
Back of Quilt - Tie-Dye Calico and Bandana Binding, 71.5cm x 73.5cm