Last year a customer brought in a fall wall hanging that she said she, “Just whipped up last night.” I was so impressed, and I absolutely loved the leaf shadow effect. I knew when I saw it I wanted to make one.
We recently offered the class where everyone could bring their fabrics, do the bleaching in our back parking lot, and leave with a ready-to-quilt project. I wanted to share the outcomes of this project class with you.
The book, “Casting Shadows” by Colleen Wise, has a variety of ways to achieve the looks of shadows with fabric piecing techniques along with this spectacular bleaching technique.
Each person started with a black or semi-black batik fabric, traced leaves on freezer paper, and pressed them into the desired position on the background. Using a 50/50 ratio of bleach and water, they sprayed the background. The area where the leaves were positioned would stay the original color of the background fabric and become the “shadow”. Next the fabric was soaked in a stop bath that would prevent the bleach from continuing to bleach the entire piece.
After rinsing the fabric and pressing the piece dry, the fabrics for the colorful leaves, which had fusible web on the back, were ironed onto the background fabric and offset slightly from the leaf shadows.
Everyone did leave with their leaves ready to quilt, to add an impressive piece to their fall décor.
