Today I stained my quilt with tea, but it didn't come out the way I wanted. I wrung out the quilt and hung it on a line and sprayed a diluted walnut stain on it, to darken it more. Unfortunately it doesn't show the staining with a camera.
After I let it drip dry on the line, I threw it in a dryer to finish the drying and it came out with a nice crinkly look. I had to iron it to get it to lay flatter, so that took out some of the crinkling.
The idea came from an antique quilt, and I added the circle and leaves to mine. It is done with fusible raw edge and hand stitched, then hand quilted with dmc pearl cotton. For the strings, I used precut strips from a log cabin quilt, that a friend was making and she sent me the extras. I wanted to keep it scrappy and the strips were perfect, for the look that I wanted. The middle and border strips were done with Barbara Brackman's line, 1862 Battle Hymn.
The quilt measures 28" x 28". It is darker in person with stain spots from the walnut spray.
Here is a close up of the stitching. I do a basic stitch, no thought to keeping it perfect, but I try to be something uniform;)
And here is a link to the original quilt. I really like how the strings look and think this would be fun to do with a bed sized quilt and change out the middle with a different appliqué design. A great way to use up scraps. The photo is courtesy of Quilt Museum and Gallery.
