Silk Quilt

I did go ahead and make sew up the five large pieces of silk brocade into a quilt.  I used Dream Puff batting and a cordoroy backing, with quilting in about 9" squares, making it into a kind of comforter.  I wanted a warm quilt for napping on the couch, which led me to Dream Puff.  (I learned about this batting from Weeks Ringle--see this post.)  To get the "comforter" look, I sewed the layers with a "pillowcase" finish rather than using regular binding.  I'd never done this on anything larger than a placemat before, so the size was a challenge. 

Also, the silk is quite challenging to sew with because of how slippery it is, and because it gives quite a bit in sewing, rather than holding its shape.  I was pleased that it ending up working out all right.  I did a few small trials along the way, for one part or another of the process, and that helped.  It also helped that I had some experience at this point with the fabric after sewing the scarves.  (Double-clicking on photo should bring up a larger version.)

More about the process,  mostly for the quilters out there:  I pinned the batting to my design wall, and spray-basted the silk to the batting.  (I am a big fan of spray-basting; see this tutorial by Patsy Thompson.)  Then I trimmed the batting so that it was 1/4" less that the top all around. (See helpful tutorial by Susan Brubaker Knapp.)  I taped the cordoroy backing to the floor of my studio, right side up.  I laid the top and batting on it, pinned around, and then cut the backing to the same size as the top.

When I sewed the three layers together, I kept the batting on top, so that I could check that I caught a bit of it most of the way around the edge, using a 3/8" seam.

 

I left an opening, turned the quilt right side out, and then hand-sewed the opening closed.  How then to mark the quilting?  I didn't want to mark the silk, even with chalk.  I thought of quilting with the cordoroy side up, as it could be easily marked, but I thought it likely the silk would then bunch up underneath.  I ended up "marking" the silk by putting a line of straight pins where I wanted to quilt.  This had the dual benefit of not only marking the quilt, but keeping the 3 layers together as well.  (The top and batting were secured by the spray-baste, but the cordoroy needed pinning to those 2 layers.)  You can see the white heads of the pins in the photo below.

When I was finishing the quilt, I suddenly noticed that--minus the light green--I had once again been using the colors of my "Shelter" quilt.  Seems I'm not done with these colors. . .

Chinese silk brocade

I visited China in December 2007--a great trip all around.  In addition to the usual sites, I went to fabric markets in Beijing and Shanghai.  I came away with a small suitcase full of Chinese silk brocade. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, I would sometimes to go Marshall Field's and browse in some departments just to see beautiful things, and one of the displays I liked to look at was a table full of bolts of Chinese silk brocade.  Some 20 years later, I went back to visit them again, but alas, the fabric department was gone.  I think I carried that image of the fabrics with me still, and when I saw stalls filled with these silks, at extremely low prices (especially after the expected bargaining), I found myself buying one piece after another.  But then what to do with them?  I had visions of making wall hangings of some sort, but started out with smaller things.  The silk was very difficult to work with. I put it aside.  I tried something else.  Still didn't work out.  I made an occasional small gift (bookmarks, needle case), but kept thinking about what else I might do on a larger scale.  Finally, I got the idea to make a scarf, and this worked out well.  The photo above is a pile of several I've made.  Here they are hanging next to each other:

And then another idea occurred to me--a way of using large pieces of the fabric.  I could piece very large rectangles into a quilt top.  (My first thought was to cut the fabrics into blocks about 9x12", but decided I'd rather keep a large expanse of individual fabrics.)  I played today with the lengths of fabric that I have, and so far I like this layout (just pinned up roughly, selvages not yet cut off).  This is about 60x80":

I will ponder it some more, but I think this might work.  I'm thinking of using a somewhat puffy batting (Dream Puff), cordoroy on the back, and quilting it in large (10") squares.  Your thoughts much appreciated!

Here's the fabric I'll still have left: