quilted
taped muslin lining to the floor to keep smooth. whip-stitched two smaller pieces of cotton batting together to make up the length needed.
pin basted the quilt sandwich together and captured how impossible it is to keep black fabric lint-free.
used DMC cotton stranded embroidery floss in ecru, separated into 3 strands, with a Tulip big eye straight thin size Sashiko needle. pulled strands over beeswax before quilting to help prevent fraying and breakage.
quilted in free-hand lines widthwise, starting from the center. i can see how my technique was affected over time as my fingertips became more tender.
kept the muslin lining and cotton batting long at the short edges. trimmed the batting to remove bulk and folded the muslin over to create a binding, blind stitching to the twill to finish. the light table fits snuggly in the cover, so i kept the closure simple using brass sew-on snaps to secure when stowed away.
trimmed excess muslin and batting to meet the long edge of the twill and finished raw sandwich edges with blanket stitch using 3 strands of DMC ecru embroidery floss – no beeswax this time. learned how to cleanly transition threads midway through blanket stitch using this tutorial from Upcycle DesignLab.
finished, “front” and “back”
the quilting turned out alright. started with tight tolerances and knotted off by the skin of my teeth. hadn’t expected as much shirring from the quilting process – my dimensions didn’t account for it. and while blanket stitch was considered as an alternative to more traditional finishing methods – bias tape/quilt binding – it turned out to be just the stitch for a narrow seam allowance.
i’m really happy with this.
bonus: little sachet i made yesterday to hold a gift for a friend whose birthday is today (happy birthday!). pleased with this spur of the moment project.
