Strata Quilting

Strata quilting was the name of the class I took earlier this month. The technique was new to me and rather fun once I knew what I was doing. The pillow pictured is my finished project from that class.

Basically, the technique was rather simple. You laid one fabric on top of another....right sides facing up......made a slightly curvy cut with your rotary cutter......flipped one piece onto the other.....and sewed, using a narrow seam. The hard part (at least for me) was trying to picture what I wanted the end piece to look like. You were creating a picture of sorts. I'm a very traditional sort of quilter, so I found this way outside my comfort zone and rather challenging to do. I did manage to complete a small piece in class.....but didn't finish it right away. Once I got home I wasn't sure what the piece wanted. So I patiently waited util if finally decided and let me know. It had decided that it wanted to be a pillow. One where all the seams were done with a decorative stitch using rayon threads....which I did.....and had lots of fun doing.  :>) I had backed the pillow front with a piece of cotton batting before doing all the decorative stitching.....in essence, quilting it. I used a couple of the maxi stitches available on my machine in the larger  areas of the pillow front. The stitch used in the blue was left as is. The stitch used on the gold fabric didn't really show. It got lost in the color and pattern of the fabric. So I opted to color it in with colored pencils. While the end result is subtle, it does give the eye a bit of relief from such a busy fabric.

As for the pillow backing......I tried something new (for me). The piece decided that it wanted a string backing using a flip-and-sew on a foundation method....something I have never done before. So out came the older books on string quilting.....and I was off and running. Loved this technique!! It was fun and allowed me to create a beautiful backing that was quilted as well (since I used batting as my foundation piece).

The pillow itself is now on display at the shop where I took my class. I hope it brings inspiration to all that see it.