Orange Wholecloth

Orange Wholecloth Machine Trapunto with Soft and Bright poly bat, silk Dupioni, 40 weight Gütermann rayon thread, Warm and Natural batting

This quilt started life as a piece of golden yellow, iridescent silk Dupioni. I used matching rayon thread and was really enjoying watching it come to life. During the binding process I thought I had stained the quilt top with orange popsicle. I tried several fabric cleaners and the "stain" did not budge. Finally I figured out that the "stain" was actually fabric bleed and it was not popsicle but only water that had stained my quilt. The warp threads on this particular piece of silk were lemon yellow, the weft was a vibrant magenta and when the magenta bled onto the yellow it produced this odd shade of orange. I washed this quilt twice in the washing machine to try for a more even bleed. Since orange is my least favorite colour and the smallest pile of fabric in my stash, my friends corrected me and said the colour was really "salmon" or "coral"! Having already cut the fabric for the binding, I had to buy more fabric to finish the quilt. Silk shrinks quite a bit and I knew if I washed the precut binding strips I would have had a handful of uneven, wiggly strips to try and apply a binding with. I prewashed the new binding fabric before cutting the strips. Try as I may I could not get the new fabric to bleed to the same shade of orange as the quilt! I later cut pieces of the original fabric and tried Synthrapol, Retayne, cold water, hot water, soap, and no soap to experiment with the colour. Everything still came out orange! This quilt and I are still not friends...!