Playtime

Over the past little while I've been playing with the reversible quilt technique described by Sharon Pederson, in her book, "Reversible Quilts".  This is the technique I had been asked to use in most of the charity quilts I've worked on over the past few months, and I wanted to learn more about it.

She has a second book, "More Reversible Quilts", that explores the technique a little further, but I couldn't afford to buy both, so information in that one hasn't been available to me.  In my exploration I've been using fabric that is mainly from my stash of hand dyes, especially some of my dyed cotton Damask tablecloths.  The cotton Damask takes a Procion MX dye beautifully, and there is something about the soft, well aged fabric that gives the colour a glow that I've never found anywhere else.  Only one of the light blue strips was cotton Damask, but all of the red/purple strips were Damask.  I found that using it this way requires a very cautious cutting and seewing technique.  I buy my cotton Damask at thrift stores, and the used tablecloths often have stains or holes in them, that I have to work around.  Trust me, I don't cut up valuable antiques

I particularly like a low water immersion dyeing technique and most of the fabric used was dyed that way.  However, the darkest of the light blue strips could only be found in a commercial fabric.  The patterned fabric used on the dark side of the piece was originally a pale red hand dyed piece that was overdyed with navy using a Shibori-type technique.  I've had this one for awhile and was glad to finally find a use for it. I think it works very well. 

The following pictures show the trimmed but not joined sections of the piece, both sides. As well there is a close-up of the red/purple Damask strips.