Last November I went to the first of a regular gathering of local queer-identified folks who are into crafting. We surrounded a campfire, each lugging our own big pots and bags full of scrap fabric and yarn. Organizers brought a few items to use as natural dyes, plus mordants. (I wish I remembered more of the process so I could share it with you here, but I was happy to just be a participant and absorb from the others! This is not an area of comfort for me and I was glad to follow others' leads.)
I returned home with fabric that I'd dyed with pokeweed (orange), red onion (greenish gray), and butterfly pea flower (pale bluish lavender), plus a little yarn that I'd dyed with the red onion as well. I loved how the colors looked together, and thought to myself I ought to try to make a quilted playmat for the new baby we are expecting!
I'm happy to say it's finished. This is my first-ever quilting project, loosely inspired by this project, although using much smaller pieces and yarn ties through the top layer and batting, as opposed to embroidery thread.
I cut 3.5" squares from the dyed fabric (and some other white scrap fabric I still had) and sketched out a rough design using my son's crayons. I used a grid of nine by nine squares for an approximate quilt length and width of 31.5".
It is FAR from perfect, but I love how it turned out, and (aside from all the ironing) it was a joy to create. I used other leftover fabric for the backing, and pieced together a few pieces of batting to make it work, so it also feels cool that I didn't have to purchase anything new for this project.
