Cynthia St. Charles Store

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Rainbow Lake Wildflowers #1 Finished!


I finished the quilting on this first piece. It measures 16 x 20 after trimming. I have mounted it on stretcher bars.

I thought I would really like the darker green thread but it is too obvious and I won't use it again. I had a nice variegated yellow green Mettler cotton that looked really nice, but it kept breaking. All the paint and ink on the fabric made it really stiff and it was really hard on the threads.

I have been looking for a nice moss green variegated thread for a long time. I have never yet found what I really want. I prefer poly thread over cotton for durability. However, sometimes the look of cotton is preferable so I try to keep both on hand.
Here is a view from the side showing the way I mounted it on stretcher bars. I painted the canvas edge (I used a factory stretched canvas) with acrylics and the quilt binding is actually a couched hand dyed specialty thread that has been zig zagged right along the cut edge. I then glued the quilt in place with my favorite permanent non-toxic adhesive - "The Ultimate" by api (Adhesive Products Incorporated). This is the first time I have ever actually glued a quilt to stretcher bars. I tried to wrap it, but this particular piece was just too bulky so I pulled all the staples out and decided to go a different route.

I thought it might be nice to paint over it with some kind of varnish or medium to seal it and make it look more like a painting, but I needed to get it to a gallery, and ran out of time.

4 comments:

  1. Beautifully done! I'm still waiting to try my first 'mounted' quilt, but I'm encouraged by your methods... will have to try it soon! And I love the addition of the butterflies to the composition. You have such a wonderful array of prints and stamps in your arsenal...

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  2. YLI Variations Trilobal Polyester threads are wonderful to quilt with. I love their greens for my bontanical quilting. They are very strong and gorgeous!
    LuAnn in Oregon
    http://luannkessi.blogspot.com/

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  3. Cynthia, this is fantastic. I loved- and very much appreciated- reading along with your progression on this series. Very exciting to see one completed!

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  4. Lovely and I like the darker green. Thread breaking ... have you ever used "Thread Heaven"??

    http://www.threadheaven.com/about.html

    It's great for breakage and keeping threads from tangling.

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