New Confession-Finished

 Earlier this week I shared my new Confession quilt, unfortunately its edges were so ruffly I knew I couldn't leave them like that.  

A lot of the problem was the couched yarn edges which had pretty permanently stretched out the edges.  I cut off all the edges and decided I didn't want to struggle with getting the curves even or taking the chance of things stretching out again.  So I decided to make it octagonal and cut the edges down nice and straight.  I stitched grosgrain ribbon along the edges on the back side to prevent the edges from stretching.  I think that really helped,  it was a suggestion from my friend Diana Fox who uses twill tapeon the back of all her edges.  I think it's beneficial, especially for all these things I make with weird fabric.  I wound up putting a traditional binding on this one after stabilizing the edges and I think it came out ok.

Confession 2, c. 2026, Shannon Conley, 52x36

It hangs much nicer now and I'm so glad it's out of time out!

New Quilt-Confession-2

 

Back in 2017 I made this piece below as part of my liturgical series. It features our prayer of confession.  I sold it to the Episcopal Cathedral in Sacramento, California. It was an exciting sale but I've regretted selling it ever since, mostly because I want to have the whole series together.  Almost as soon as I sold it, I knew I'd need to make another one.

I didn't get around to it until last year, and of course I couldn't remember exactly how I'd done it.  I remember I'd written out the confession on plastic and used cyanotype to print it on fabric, so I started that way again.  I printed out the words full-size in the cross shape and put it under a piece of glass.  I wanted it to be in my handwriting, so I used the paper words as a guide for where to place the words.

Unfortunately, after trying to do the cyanotyping, I could barely see the words.  Finally I decided to go back to my blog posts from way back then and realized that I'd had this same trouble before; the glass was thick enough that the sunlight could sort of come it an angle under the writing on the top of the glass.

For the second time, I wrote the words on a piece of thin tablecloth vinyl and put that under the glass and tried the printing again.

That time it worked much better, and the edges of the vinyl actually printed as well which went along with the theme.

I didn't have any more of the turquoise fabric, but I had a lovely large piece of this pruple and brown wool.  It was a wonderful thick wool with a fairly open weave.  It was actually some sort of poncho, no idea where it came from, but it had a lovely soft drape and a nice curved edge so I decided to use it for the background.  I finished the edge of the floating prayer for the center and then floated it inside the wool piece.  I quilted some pieces of the baptismal vows in the background, and then finished the edges with couched yarn.  The edge was way too thick to turn for a facing. 

Unfortunately, the wool was really soft and stretchy and the curved edges got really stretched out and ruffly.  I liked the yarn, but there was no amount of pressing or anything I could do to get it to lay flat.  I was so hacked I just hung it up on the wall in time out and ignored it for a year.  Now that I'm about to exhibit all the quilts though, I decided it was time to fix it for good.  Come back on Wednesday to see how I rescued it.