. . . this is as far as it got. In this shot it was sandwiched and pinned, hanging on the design wall waiting for me to be struck by inspiration as how to quilt it. I didn't get it finished by the time our fall colors arrived so I mumbled and grumbled a bit and put up the old curtain but vowed I'd make time to have it finished before Christmas (last year). Yeah, right, as they say. Didn't happen . . . but it's happenin' now!
Last year I wrote in my personal blog, A Home Grown Journal, that I got the idea for making my quilted shower curtains from a friend that had made one for her bathroom. When I started making ones for our home, I decided not to put any batting between the layers as you would for a normal quilt. My friend had constructed hers with a batting, but let me tell you, you had to be sure to eat your Wheaties before taking your shower in the morning at her house because that shower curtain was so heavy, you needed all the muscle you could muster to move it back and forth on the rod!
Previous to the construction of this particular shower curtain of mine, I had always simply quilted the pieced front to a muslin backing and that made a nice, light curtain that seemed to work well. The only thing I haven't liked about doing my shower curtains this way is that without batting, any quilting I did doesn't really show up. Batting is what gives definition to the quilting.
Thermore is a very thin, light batting which is used primarily for table runners that you want to lie flat or for light quilts that you want to "drape" well, on a bed, for instance. What the heck, I thought. I'll use Thermore as batting on this shower curtain and see how I like it.
This is where the shower curtain is today. I've still got maybe a quarter of the quilting to do. Then I'll bind it and put button holes across the top for the rings on the shower curtain rod to go through. With luck, I hope to have it up by the first of September. (Gak, that's like in two days!)
I definitely missed my self-imposed deadline of Christmas last year, but I'll be way ahead of that this year.
4 comments:
I'm sure this is a huge no-no for quilters, but, if you didn't use any batting but wanted the stitching / quilting to show on plain muslin . . . what about doing the quilting in a (gasp!) COLORED thread? Seriously!
Chicken Mama - You're not suggesting a no-no at all. Colored thread (even metallic, variegated, multiple colors) is used very frequently these days in quilting.
I've usually got so much color going on in my shower curtains that I'm not sure just how much colored thread would show up but it's definitely something to think of when I make my next one.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Well, I was thinking that it would show up on the plain / muslin side that would highlight the stitching, anyway . . . vs. the "already pretty" side. :)
Aha! Gottcha. Thing is . . . the opaque plastic shower curtain liner goes between the person in the shower and the muslin backing of the shower curtain. So one wouldn't readily see the stitching on the muslin. Make sense?
But I still like your idea of using colored thread to show up more on the visible side of the shower curtain.
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