A test of patience

Deciding not to spend money on fabric for the back of the batik quilt, I took out the pile of tenugui showing all kinds of children's games. My fourth daughter is an early-childhood teacher and I'm sure she will get a kick out of this collection of tenugui. Friday I made use of the floor space at my quilt friend's house to arrange the selection and began sewing the towels together by hand. There was a bit of a trick to this because the towels are not all the same length or width. Choosing pairs, I sewed them into strips which are close to the same length. This puts the center seam at different points down the center but one of the quilt ladies thought if I press the center seams open, the mis-match will probably not show much after quilting. That seems like the best plan of attack.


After joining the rows, I find that this section is still too narrow for the backing. Rather than add more of the children's towels sideways, I decided to use yukata fabric for the outside edges. I have a lovely floral but it is on dark blue and I think the bamboo on white looks a bit better.

With no place to spread out and arrange the borders, I spread a tarp on the street outside my house so I could figure out a plan. The tarp was too narrow so the yukata fabric is on the street. A light spring breeze kept turning the corners and before I was finished I had to fold it over several times to allow bikes to pass. The section of road behind the camera is only the size of the green tarp, about two meters. For that reason, at least, I did not have to deal with cars.

After looking at the size of the backing, it appears the towel section is too long by about half the width of a row of tenugui. Rather than trim the lower row of children, I decided to remove the second row from the bottom since those children are a bit larger in size. Then I re-positioned the bottom row and added the bamboo to the lower edge as well as the sides. I will not feel as bad about cutting off part of the bamboo as I would spoiling the children in play.

The thing is, now that I sit and look at this picture, I recall the yukata fabric I used for the border of the kaleidoscope quilt (a kind of braided link design) that is just about the width that I need and I bet I have just enough already cut too. Then, again, that might be just a bit too strong a pattern. Un-sewing and re-sewing seams of several meters takes a lot longer by hand so I want to be sure before I go that far. This is the time I really wish for a very large empty room.

The back has gotten its act together.

Well, today the backing of the quilt is finally done. In the end I had to let the towels decide where they should go. Because of the variety of makers, there is more often than not a variety in both width and length of each towel. Also, because of the way they are dyed, like batik, there is no difference in front or reverse side EXCEPT where there is writing ... and many of the towels are made for commemorative purposes so writing is part of the design. Not knowing which side is up could make for a backward bit of reading.

Next challenge will be piecing the batting. I'm hoping I will have enough to do the job. Anyway, it will have to wait a bit because all of my day tomorrow is taken up with choir, church, Scouts, and family.

revelations

A search of my storage box reveals that I have more than enough towels to back the quilt.

There are lots of Kabuki related ones and a few Scout related ones and even a list of the names of the 47 ronin ... how samurai can you get?

Second discovery is that if I remove all the furniture and the ladder to the loft, I can make enough space to lay the quilt out for basting. That was a pressing worry.

I would like to arrange the towels so there is no up or down...left or right. There is some variety of width and length depending on the maker which makes it a little tricky too. Too bad all my daughters live so far away as they are good at making those decisions for me.

Log Jam 1992