Last night I whipped up this small sample of quilting using blue linen and piece of washable silk. The linen has been in my fabric stash for some time now, and the silk was recently purchased from a seamstress having a moving sale.
I'd like to make a quilt using these two fabrics, but wanted to answer some questions first:
Q. How difficult is it going to be to sew with these two fabrics?
A. It wasn't hard. Both have a lot of drape, but I didn't find it unreasonably challenging.
Q. How will the finished quilt feel?
A. I plan to use Quilters Dream cotton batting in the Request version. It is super light, easy to sew and gives the finished quilt a nice drape. The thinner batting also makes the finished quilt look more modern. This batting is going to be perfect. The finished piece feels divine!
Q. How will the silk look with the blue quilting lines.
A. Looks fine to me. Lately I'm feeling interested in high contrast quilting.
Q. How well will these fabrics wash?
A. I washed/dried the sample by machine and it turned out lovely. The linen gives even extra crinkly quiltiness to the washed piece. I like it when quilts are wrinkly and old looking (can you tell I want it to look both vintage and modern at the same time?).
Q. How hard is it to use linen for binding.
A. It is not easy and will probably be the hardest part of making this quilt (when I get around to actually making it...). But it is going to be ok. Using lots of spray starch on the binding pieces will probably make it easier to handle.
It was definitely worth the small investment of time and materials to make this small sample.
For anyone who might be interested in quilting with linen, but maybe isn't quite ready to work with the fabric, here is something I discovered:
Robert Kaufman makes a whole line of "Quilter's Linen". It is cotton fabric printed to look like linen! Maybe this has been around forever, but I just stumbled across it while researching quilting with linen, and found it interesting.
I will still use my linen, since I have it and already went through my experiment. But this Quilter's Linen fabric looks like a great idea for anyone who wants a linen look, without the extra sewing challenge or expense.
