Playing with Satin

Playing with satin.  Or if you aren't great with spelling and feel challenged, it may read like "Playing with Satan".  I made this lap quilt last December.  It is a cranberry satin on the top and a printed poly (gasp!...kind of satin-like) on the back.  In hindsight, it probably should have had a quieter fabric like flannel on the back, but I was trying out fancy fabrics and in a "What the hell" mood that day.

The design process of this quilt was relatively simple...I marked the center square, marked some angles, eye-balled a few things and then pulled threads.  I really expected the colored Glide threads to show more than they did, but it was sort of an experiment.  It was supposed to be a Christmas present too, but I wasn't in any mood to finish it 4 months ago, so it sat!

It is only single batted with my usual 80/20 batting.  I expect it to be a lap quilt, so no wool.  The quilting definition is just fine because it's shiny.  It was fun to stitch...I think I spent 4 hours just free-stitching -- some ruler work, but mostly freehand.

One thing I learned is that satin is very hard to keep a quilt square.  I ended up trimming quite a bit to square it up before binding it.  And binding with satin is more like binding Satan.  Holy moly...that stuff is very slippery.  Knowing my motivation to do any quilting the week after MQX, I knew the only way it would get bound is if it was done on machine.  I never thought I'd starch satin, but it had to be done to get that stuff pressed!  In the end, the binding is not my best by far, but it's not too bad.  I noticed that the blue pen used to mark the quilt hadn't disappeared so I washed the quilt.  Who knew satin would wash and dry so easily??!

It's an interesting twist from the usual cotton that quilts are made from.  It is very drapable and shows off the quilting really nice.  Though it wasn't really hard to quilt, it leaves me not really thrilled that my next quilt up is made from silk!