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Saturday 3 February 2018

Silk Screen Printed Silhouette Quilt ~ Progress

It's almost two years since I showed you how the silk screened silhouette is progressing. This quilt has been four years in the making, with the majority of the time spent deliberating how to attack each upcoming stage.

Silk screen printed silhouette quilt ~ Threading My Way

My daughter and I have worked on this quilt together, with Tash doing all the silk screen printing a long time ago...

The quilt top has been finished for ages, and the other day I finally got my act together and pin basted the quilt sandwich.


It's ready to quilt, and that's where I would value your suggestions on thread colours and quilting styles.

Here's our thoughts so far...
  • The backing is a solid black, but I'm thinking black on the front may detract from the black silhouettes. 
  • The tension will have to be spot on if we have black thread for the back and another colour on the front, but it is do-able.
  • We don't want any quilting through the silhouettes. Vertical lines will easily miss the silhouettes, but it will be hard to do horizontal lines side to side without going through some silhouettes.


The last picture shows the rows of blocks before they were joined together. I've put this pic as it shows me how I can sew vertical lines.

Let me know how you would attack the quilting. I so do not want to stall at this point!!!

... Pam




14 comments:

  1. What a beautiful design! I wish I could give advice, but am still quite the novice at quilting. Please keep us posted! -Marci @ Stone Cottage Adventures

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  2. Dear Pam,
    this is going to be a beautiful quilt ... in addition to a community work with your daughter, I think that's great. The motives are so beautiful and I like it a lot. I would only quilt in the seam shadow of the blocks.
    I wonder how he will look finished.

    Greetings Klaudia

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  3. This is so beautiful Pam. I always struggle with thread color with quilting. Since each square has it's own border, can you or would you want to quilt a "square" for each? It would not have any connecting quilt lines. Would that be enough to attach all layers?

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  4. I'm excited to see this coming along, I remember the screenprinting post!! I think it would look really retro and cool with hand tied knots - but that's just me :D

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  5. Neat top! I'm thinking framing each square too. Whatever you do, good luck!

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  6. I love to hand quilt so my advice might not help (fail miserably at machine quilting!)
    However, if you want black I agree with others about ‘framing’ blocks, which would pop those silhouettes too. A bit of hassle to use a machine and not continuously quilt tho I imagine, but the effect would really be in theme.

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    1. Thanks so much for the suggestions, Joy. I've only done hand quilting on one quilt. I did think of doing it again for this quilt, but I'm hoping to finish soon, so will run out of time. So machine quilting it will be. Stopping and starting is a bit of a hassle, but I may have to.

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  7. Beautiful quilt top Pam! I would choose a variegated thread that has all the fabric colors, except the black. Start by stitching in the ditch vertically over the whole quilt and then do free motion around each applique. The black applique will look a bit puffy after you quilt, so keep that in mind if you don't want to quilt on the black.

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  8. This looks amazing Pam! I wouldn't use a thread for quilting that would detract from those fabulous silhouettes, so agree with the others that black is probably out. Maybe a neutral, Aurifil do a silver-grey, that would blend in to the background would be a better bet.

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  9. Im still thinking about this amazing quilt - I love the colours with the black and the vertical rectangles/stripes - I’ve had a similar thought to Daryl above, to use a variegated thread based on the yellow violet and aqua of the background. Guterman do a cotton one that I know of. You could do long vertical bubble rectangles and when between blocks of silhouettes you could do short wide bubble rectangles - some short horizontal ones could cross the long vertical ones in places. Then on the reverse black backing you would have these amazing criss cross of rectangles outlined in a peek of colour around black square spaces. Probably overthinking it :/

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    1. I bought a few reels of variegated Guterman thread the other day, Joy - thanks to the suggestions. You're not overthinking at all. It's been great to read and think about all the options - many of which I would never have thought of. The intersecting bubble rectangles is a very creative idea, which I'd like to try at some stage - if not on this quilt, then another in the future.

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  10. Fantastic quilt top. Have you tried monofilament thread? I've used it twice now and have been pleased with the result.

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  11. Beautiful design Pam! I would go with lighter threads for the quilting and use the same color on the back. I never seem to do well with 2 different colors of thread for quilting.

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