Wednesday, July 20, 2011

No cottons allowed

I've collected materials for years and love all the cottons, from Laura Ashley sprigged flowers in the seventies to today's wonderful large bright prints. But I also have a collection of non cotton materials, some of which have never been cut into ... till now.
What if I made fabric from these.

Silks brought by a friend from China.



A silk dress from a charity shop in Edinburgh, a wonderful textured fabric of many colours from a fabric shop in Switzerland and a dark transparent chiffon.


Some curtain and upholstery fabric.




And what if I made fabric by laying out pieces with raw edges.

I cut a five and a half inch square of medium weight interfacing and applied the fabrics to it.




And did some free machine sewing to stitch them together then trimmed the square to five inches. It didn't look very good at this stage and I nearly gave up.





I'm glad I didn't. This is the final result. The background is a polyester fabric I bought to make a skirt.





Thanks Margaret for the pinwheel pattern and great instructions. I think this block may turn into something bigger.






10 comments:

Eat Sleep Quilt said...

what a great idea and a beautiful block! I love the subtle, rich shimmer of the non-cotton fabrics.

Linda

Sandy Panagos said...

Wow, that is going to be stunning!

Debra Dixon said...

I love this whole concept! I've been playing around with mixing a variety of fabrics too. The pinwheel block is so dramatic done this way. Excellent!

Nancy Bowron said...

Wow! The shine adds a whole new dimension!

Chris said...

Lovely! It's like crazy quilting meets patchwork - cool!

Victoria Findlay Wolfe said...

Love where your PLAY took you! that's a great challenge too!

Nifty Quilts said...

Fabulous!!! And very elegant. You go girl!

CharlotteP said...

Pretty! Slippery and tricky too...well done you!

Nina Lise@Mrs Moen said...

Beautiful! I love the shine of the fabrics!

Margaret said...

Wow ... you are brave! Love the raw edges & fancy stitches and the shine ...