Tuesday, July 31, 2012

You Can Find Inspiration, Even In A Deli

Ideas for quilts can come from many places.  I went out to lunch the other day with my husband to a local deli and was mesmerized by the fabric on the benches.  During the entire meal I kept thinking about what a fun quilt this would be to create.


I have been further exploring dupioni silk this summer and decided to use it for this project.For piecing the silk needs to be stabilized.  I like to do this with either a woven or tricot fusible interfacing.  The interfacing needs to be applied with a damp press cloth.

 
For fusible applique, some fraying of the silk occurs when using the interfacing. 
 Because the dupioni is so coarsely woven, some fraying will always occur,
 but using only fusible web lessens the amount of fraying.

This is the piece on my design wall before I stitched it and added the circles.  
 I had doubts about the design and thought about putting it away. 
 But I decided to keep going.
The blanket stitching and the many colored circles made a huge difference.
I used a rayon thread to do the blanket stitching.
I handstiitched the circles down and quilted a swirl inside it.


I am still working on a name for it.  I was watching the Tour de France while I was quilting it.  Stitching around the circles, made me think about when the cyclists split and  ride around the roundabouts.  It also made me think about how the cyclists ride behind each other in the slipstream for decreased wind resistance. But I'm not enthralled with using those ideas for names.

Any ideas?

12 comments:

  1. ohhh this is quite nice - I love using a woven interfacing with my silk too - I'm just in the habit now of buying yardage of it when I get the silk. Love the blanket stitch detail - fun to do and pretty!

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  2. your design is breathtaking. love the inspiration behind it. only you could take that and make it look this good...

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  3. Very cool idea! Not sure about a name.

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  4. IT IS GORGEOUS!
    I don't know anyone who does so much of stitching as you do!
    And, I don't have any clue about the name but I am sure you will come up with something fabulous for it.

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  5. I couldn't believe you found inspiration in those deli seats!! But what a wonderful interpretation. and what a difference before/after you added the colorful circles. very, very nice!! not coming up with great name yet but do like tour de france and slipstream.

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  6. I love Dupioni silk, too, and also use lightweight woven interfacing. Love those colors! How about "Rpundabout"

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  7. Oh My, this is wonderful, sort of Modern Quilting, which I love. Your squiggles are better than their wiggles! Did you draw your own template Cheryl? Noel (cockapoo) has her sister to play with for 3 weeks while the family is on vacation in Europe. They love to run circles and chase around the cutting table - Noel is probably teaching Maggie to be loud and rowdy! - Sure liked the tomato post also, nice to see all the green grass - all brown here, wells are drying up in northern Indiana too.

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  8. It looks like the chain on a bicycle to me. How about "linked"?

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  9. You mentioned bikes, this actually looks like bicycle chained, stacked https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR4b3CyzPbpKU4HVclBvcgutQfFyyN-Upww9dmcuA-y9iN90IH6

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  10. Great post, and lovely quilt! Since you are thinking biking, how about Pelleton? Don't know if I spelled it right, but it's a great word for those groups of bikers riding bunched up.

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