HEIRLOOM TABLECLOTH

For most of the Spring and early Summer of 2014,  I have been working on a tablecloth, my entry for the ‘Tomorrow’s Heirlooms’ competition to celebrate the Centenary of the WI in 2015.  Now it has finally been completed and delivered,  I am able to share how it was made.

The main coloured panel started out white and evolved (or grew) as the result of various textile experiments.  The first addition of colour, olive green and tropical green, was the unpredictable result of ice-dyeing, where salt-soaked fabric was covered with ice cubes with dye crystals sprinkled on top. 

This technique results in a pattern created by nature as the dye falls on the fabric where the ice melts. I did the ice-dyeing back in February when it was so cold the ice wouldn’t melt naturally and I had to use a heat gun to speed up the process!

When it was dry, the fabric reminded me of looking up through a canopy of leaves. To add to this effect, I used some of the fabric to cut out 47 leaves which were appliqued in the four corners.  These represent the 47 members of Throop WI; they are all a bit different, none of them are perfect, some are a little frayed around the edges.  I used green, red and mult-coloured thread to attach the leaves.

In order for the cloth to look a little less like army- issue camouflage, the fabric was then over-dyed  by sprinkling the salt-soaked fabric with ocean blue dye.  By this time I had already stitched on the leaves so in order for this not to go blue I masked them off with leaf shaped cards.  The dye was sprinkled on from the back.

The result was a beautiful multi-colour effect, reminiscent of Monet’s Water lilies. The pink ‘flowers’ were randomly scattered by Mother Nature (pink particles being an ingredient in the blue dye.)

The cream borders on the four edges are hand-embroidered with words to describe the WI’s contribution to society over the past 100 years:

The WI Inspiring Women since 1915

Throop WI ~ Women Working Together

Community

Friendship

I used a water-soluble pen to write the words then embroidered them in green thread using backstitch.  The borders are made with a self-facing so that no messy stitching shows on the back.  On the four corner squares are four gold leaves to mark this special anniversary.

I nearly gave up and was ready to take the scissors to it several times, but now it’s finished, I’m happy.  Many hours have been spent sewing in all the threads, so that it is as neat on the back as it is on the front.

Finally the tablecloth was carefully folded so that the word friendship is uppermost when the box is opened.  

 I included a summary of how I made the cloth and a tag with wash care instructions.  Wish me luck!!

Love Jane xx