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December 13, 2010

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Jewel

Thank you for the tips!

Jocelyn

Oh my Cherri, this is gorgeous!

Jackie

Cherri, your number one tip is also mine!! A lightweight fusible interfacing is a must. My second tip is patience and love. If you have them, you will have one gorgeous quilt top just like your silk Tempest! And after seeing yours in person, you did a fabulous job, I love it!

Carol G

What a wonderful quilt. I have been in love with silk since I was a spinner/weaver in an earlier life. Now after seeing this lovely quilt, I'm dying to try one myself.

Camilla

Foundation piecing silk dupion over muslin works very nicely.

I used the recipe given by Silk Road Fabrics for washing and pre-shrinking silk, and found that it worked very nicely and made me confident about pressing the fabric as I sewed.

Kit Lang

:) I work with silk constantly - at least 50% of the time, and I like working with Dupioni silks the best - they have such a lovely hand when they're quilted up.

My number one recommendation is a little further down your list - a rotary cutter with a pinking blade can save a lot of heartache, and doesn't neccessitate the 1/2 inch seam. An example:

http://www.divaquilts.com/2010/10/welcome-to-diva-quilts.html

When I use finer weight silk (especially silk chiffon) I bond it to pellon first - fusible interfacing works very well, but I can buy Pellon by the yard here (perhaps you can't in the US) which makes bonding yards of silk to it much more feasible.

I've also done foundation piecing when mixing silks with other fiddly fabrics (lame and silk for instance) and that works well too in some applications.

I did make a quilt a few months ago that was a total mix of satin and silks of different weights. At first I started by fusing the silks to a foundaton fabric, but as I continued working with it (it was a big quilt with a lot of SMALL pieces), I began to fuse only the finest of the silks to a foundation fabric and then foundation pieces the rest. That turned out really well!

But really - if you're going to work with silks, I say for the most part - buy dupioni or upholstery weight silk, NEVER buy inexpensive silks to quilt with, use a rotary cutter, and proceed at a moderate-to-slow-end-of-moderate and you'll be fine!

Jenny at Always Quilting

Thank you for posting about your experience working with silk to make a quilt. I've been saving silk fabrics for quite sometime, in fact ever since I saw some beautiful pieced silk hangings at an exhibition of work from Korea, at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne.

Kathy

What a beautiful glowing quilt. The silks are lovely.

Megan

Thanks so much for your info. I am experimenting with dupioni silk for a quilt right now. Just this morning I worked up a little mock-up to see how the different fabrics handled and if they would "play well with others." I'm very encouraged and look forward to starting on a larger project!

Merel

Tip: Sit back and enjoy a gorgeous quilt with a lovely sheen, drape and feel! We are simply spoiled with the ease of working with cotton fabrics :-)
Thanks for the tips!

ps. why the bigger stitch length, it feels unnatural with the fraying?

Donna

Whoa!! What an incredibly beautiful quilt. I'm just blown away - kudos to you for going big with silk. I'm in love with your Tempest quilt pattern and now I HAVE TO make it in silk. Thank you so much for sharing your creativity.

Jean Peterson

Any suggestions about whole-cloth quilts. My daughter brought back a large piece of embroideried silk from China. It's probably abt 4x5 feet. There will be no cutting. I just need advice as to how to quilt it. I have a sheet that LOOKS like silk that I will use as back and will hand-quilt it. I've never worked with silk so don't know where to start. I've done LOTS of other quilts so am not a new quilter. thanks

Tracey L Pate

Thank you for this article. I am planning a silk quilt and I will be using your suggestions.

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