Rebound

I spent much of today rebinding Skipping Stones, one of my very first art quilts, created in January of this year. I've always really loved the piece, photos don't do it justice. It's a whole cloth piece of heavy cotton that I printed with thickened dyes, then painted with Lumiere in strategic places before machine quilting it.

My original method of binding the quilt was to wrap the edges of the backing around to the front, turn in an edge, and hand stitch it down. Kind of like doing a facing, but in reverse. That was how I bound all my first quilts because I didn't know any other method. Of course, I've learned tons this year, and I don't use that method any longer. Primarily, because the quilts don't lay flat. So today, I removed the sleeve and the label, undid the hand stitched edge, cut the edges straight all around, and stitched on another piece of handprinted fabric which I turned to the back of the quilt and tacked down.

And now it's hanging in our home and I can enjoy it every day!