Mystery quilt

A very long time ago I attended a mystery quilt workshop, not something I had done before, and maybe not again. Doing something like this is very hard to know what fabrics to choose, here I decided on two Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

 Why would I not do it again, purely because I like to know exactly what I have signed up for.

 It has been quilted in the itch to emphasise that pattern, and also a star motif has been quilted to replicate the star block

Thread catcher

I adapted a pattern I found on the internet for this thread catcher. I wanted one that I could store a few key pieces of equipment that I use all the time whilst sitting hand sewing. This one lives by the sofa and is in permanent use! I still love my frog one though!

Since taking this picture I have pinned a small square of wadding to the pin cushion. I use this for needles rather than pushing them into the main cushion and loosing them.

These snippets are one of my favourite pieces of equipment. Sharp, thin and so easy to use.

I have used net curtain plastic to keep the top open and it works really well. I have not waded the bag, but think I would next time to give it more shape.

Sew and Burn

Sew and burn makes a lovely textured effect creating a new exciting fabric. Starting with an all wool felt I layered tiny pieces of fabric - using anything and everything I had. This was covered with a voile and then free machined to secure everything in place.

A soldering iron with a thin tip was used to burn through the voile exposing the fabric beneath. Some of the underneath fabrics burnt as well which added interest.

Cotton Sheet to Quilt

I found an old cotton sheet that I knew we would never use. Dug out my procion dyes, made up vast quantities (3 litres each) of salt and washing soda solution, donned rubber gloves and set to making some new fabric. I cut the sheet into 12 - 14 inch squares. I wanted to have a gradual effect, working with three colours to make a spectrum of colour.

I started with lemon yellow, ultra marine and scarlet powder dyes. I mixed up a dye solution of 5 tspn of dye to 100ml tap water. I wrote on each piece of fabric as I went what the combination of colours was, however in hindsight it would have been better to do this before I started as I think I repeated one or two of the recipes.

I took a plastic bag and placed this in a small bowl, then added 5 desert spoon of the dye solution. To this I added 100 ml of salt solution, and 100 ml of soda plus 350 ml of cold water. To make this process easier I had an old jam jar marked up with masking tape accordingly.  Then I added the fabric. To make it easier for the fabric to absorb the dye I had dampened it first. I agitated the fabric in the bag sealed it with a secure knot and placed it in a cat litter tray. To the next bag I added 4 desert spoons of the first colour and one of the second.

Here is a chart to illustrate the the dye quantities

5 Y	5 B	5R
4 Y 1B	4B 1R	4R 1Y
3Y 2B	3B 2R	3R 2Y
2Y 3B	2B 3R	2R 3Y
1Y 4B	1B 4R	1R 4Y

Eventually this is what it looked like when all the bags had been completed. I then left all this over night, and agitated the bags whenever I went past.

The next morning I could not wait to open each bag. I carefully opened and rinsed the fabric in cold water then washed thoroughly, dried and ironed.

All this lovely hand dyed fabric was to be used in a dog bone/apple core quilt. All the dyed fabric was cut on an Accuquilt Go machine using the Apple Core cutter. The machine was easy to use and far quicker than trying to rotary cut around a template.  I do have the Curve Master foot, but find that my 1/4 inch foot  #57  with a lip on works a treat. The trick is to match the top tips laying the top one at near right angles and then holding this up as you sew. The machine sews and follows the curve.The actual quilt went together really easy and is now ready for quilting