I've been working on several fronts as I prepare seasonal table linens for my sister Lisa. The quilted undercloth for spring is back from the quilter and I am fairly pleased with how it turned out. I like the swirly pattern and the texture it creates, and it is clear that ironing it and keeping it wrinkle free will be much easier than the single weight of fabric. I was worried that it would be too stiff, so I used lightweight muslin for the backing and flannel for the batting and it has maintained a pleasant drape. The bands I had to add to bring the square to 61" pretty much disappear under the quilting. They don't intrude into the visual effect at all. The back is pretty too.
The downside is the cost, as long-arm quilting for this cloth added $100 to its total and that is a lot...too much for one piece in an array of things needed for each season. However, doing it this once confirmed that quilting can be a good idea, so I will have to see how hard it will be to quilt things this size on my own sewing machine.
The cloth for summer will be another square and I am wondering if I should make it larger too (61" instead of 54"), and maybe another quilt. I have really struggled to come up with a pattern for summer. I knew it had to have dragonflies, because they are meaningful for my sister's family, and they are on the dishes. I started with a photo of a dragonfly that I got on the internet and traced over it to see if I could translate it into a line drawing.
Then I scanned it into my computer and played around with other elements to see what looked good. I finally settled on foxglove, which grow in abundance in my yard in early summer. I roughly selected several from my photographs and set them along one side of the square with dragonflies interspersed among them. This seems like an outline of a pattern, but I don't know how to translate them into marks on my cloth. I decided to print them out at full size so I can experiment without the necessity of blowing them up later, which can really change how they look.
I am pretty happy that my local printshop could do these giant photos very cheaply, so I can play without worry.
Finally, I have got all the words on my autumn runner embroidered, but I think they are too low in contrast, and not quite the right color. This has turned out to be a problem. In our town we used to have a wonderful store that sold supplies for all kinds of hand work. It was owned by the wife of my fifth grade teacher, an expert knitter, crocheter, and needlepointer. She had a full wall in her shop dedicated to hand-dyed embroidery thread, mostly from Weeks and Gentle Arts, along with the full range of DMC floss, perle cotton and linen thread. It was my pleasure to take my projects into the shop and fuss for hours choosing just the right colors and weights from her selection. Alas, she retired and the next owner was not interested in embroidery thread. I still have a partial skein of floss from her in exactly the right color and value, but it isn't enough. I have attempted to order on-line from Weeks and Gentle Arts, but what they sent is not the same. I have come to the conclusion that I must dye some thread myself. Dang it. I hate dyeing thread and yarn and I don't like having to match colors. This shows that I am not an Expert Dyer. Oh well. I bought some white DMC floss and re-skeined it for dyeing with those deeply annoying figure eight ties
. It is in the mordant now. I'll let you know how it goes.