March Journal Quilt — WIP Wednesday

March is PEAS! Most years I planted my peas mid-March knowing I might lose them. Despite 2″ of snow and a 26° frost (I put blankets on my peas), they are 1″ tall this morning.
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Since I have a limited fabric stash, I hand-dye the fabrics each month for my journal quilt. I dyed 6 – 1/2 yard pieces of fabric – a blue, a yellow, and 4 shades of green. The greens came out beautiful. The blue was nice but a little boring. The yellow for the binding came out impossibly bright so I overdyed it using a faux-shibori technique using Tsunikeo inks.
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For each 1/2 yard of of green, I used 5g of yellow (Procion MX 108 — Sun Yellow from Prochem) so I diluted 20g of dye in 2 cups of water and used 1/2 cup per batch.
To the yellow I add (1.875g, 1.25g, .625g, and .3125g) of blue (Procion MX 400 — Basic Blue from Prochem). How did I accurately measure quantities that small? I mixed 5g of dye in 1/2 c of water and used (3T, 2T, 1T, 1 tsp) of dye.
If I had to do it over, I would have made the differences between the colors stronger, using (1 tsp, 1T, 2T, and 4T) of dye or maybe even (1t, 2T, 4T, 6T) to get more difference between the colors.
The picture of the quilt was taken in the sun; the picture of the fabrics was taken in my studio (using my phone). The colors of the quilt picture are more accurate — the greens are a nice limey, grassy green — not nearly as olivey as they look in the picture taken in my studio.

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5 Responses to March Journal Quilt — WIP Wednesday

  1. Linda Baie says:

    Just a gorgeous picture quilt. This is wonderful that you make these, Katya. This time, what a welcome to spring!

  2. Juliann says:

    I found your blog through Linda and love the journal quilt idea. Would love to know if you have a resource for this idea or your own guidelines?
    Beautiful work.

    • kczaja says:

      I’ve seen Journal Quilts around the Art Quilt community for about 10 years now… I think at Karey Bresenhan came up with the idea as an exhibit for the 2002 International Quilt Festival in Houston.

      It’s a great way to experiment on a small scale with form, composition, new techniques, etc.
      I don’t think there are any rules… Most people do journal quilts in an 8.5 x 11 format (like a piece of paper) but they can be any size. I’m doing 12×12. Most people do them monthly but some prolific quilt artists do them weekly.

      Do you quilt?

    • Juliann says:

      Lately, my needles have been idle but I am hoping to get back in the groove
      Thanks for you response