Black Swan Quilt
About 96" square
tThis was one of 3 quilt tops that I made in 2014 during my HSTeria Quilt Along. This quilt was born of a need to reduce some fabrics in my stash. A year or so before I started this Dharma Trading stopped making my favorite black dye. That sent me on a mission to mix my own black dye recipe and, after 60 tries, I finally got one. But that meant that I had 59 fat quarters of a lot of failures in dark colors from blues to greens to browns to purples. All of the dark fabrics in this quilt are from that recipe testing. The bright colors are my “waste” fabrics. They are strips of muslin that I use in dyeing my gradients. They catch excess dye on the edge of the bin. I love these fabrics and used them once before in my Catena quilt.
When I started quilting this one I had just finished Lura’s Choice that took months to quilt. I knew that I was going to use this one on my bed and I wanted to quilt it quickly. I don't quilt every day so the fact that this took less than a month means it was very fast to quilt.
When I started quilting this one I had just finished Lura’s Choice that took months to quilt. I knew that I was going to use this one on my bed and I wanted to quilt it quickly. I don't quilt every day so the fact that this took less than a month means it was very fast to quilt.
I used Superior Rainbows thread in the dark blocks with So Fine in the bobbin using a continuous curve pattern. The feathered ferns in the color blocks is Magnifico with orange So Fine in the bobbin. The batting is Quilter’s Dream Blend in black. Black batting was a must in this one!
The backing is a hand dyed black texture. The orange thread on the feathered ferns shows up great.
The backing is a hand dyed black texture. The orange thread on the feathered ferns shows up great.
This is a BIG quilt! Here it is on the queen size guest bed before washing. After washing it shrunk about 6” which is a good thing! It’s nice and soft and crinkly now.