Indigo Quilt Part 2

Once the unsatisfactory starter quilt had been ripped apart (and I do mean ripped, not seam ripped - the thread quality was that bad), each piece needed to be measured and squared. There were a lot of semi-wonky edges. My plan was to work the quilt top in columns made of strips. I measured and counted how many pieces of each length I had, and then calculated how many "fancy" pieces could be in each column.

The next step was adding in some extra fabrics. I had found some really cool tie-dyed fabrics in Yunnan province. "Tie-dye" in this instance is not a hippy word. These are cotton fabrics that are stitched and tied by hand to make a resist, and then dunked in an indigo fat. The result is various shades of deep gorgeous blue with areas of white resist.

Once the "fancy" fabrics had been laid out and arranged, I added the indigo fabrics.

Here's a sneak peek at the completed quilt top. Please ignore the white machine basting. The seams were really chunky, and something had to be done to hold them in place. This will be my first "big" machine quilting project. The bulk of the embroidered fabrics make this project too thick to quilt by hand without severe discomfort, and it'll be good to step out of my comfort zone a bit. It's on the to-do list for next month, but I may get around to quilting it sooner.

I'll post pictures of Yunnan and its textiles and people tomorrow.