March | 2013 | Habibi Homemade

As I mentioned in my last post, my friend N gave me beautiful silk Chinese jackets to use in my projects. I decided to use them in wall hangings. I have two done, and two to go. Each one has a different color scheme. I’ve finished the green one and the pink one. I cut a rectangle out of each jacket. I would tell you how big the rectangles are, but I can’t remember. They’re probably not exact, anyway; silk is rather difficult to work with. I cut squares out of my Asian-style fabrics matching my color schemes. The pink has four fabrics: one with pink mums, one with flowers on a black background, one with flowers on a cream background, and one with pink flowers that I can’t identify. I won’t embarrass myself by guessing.

Here’s a close up:

As you can see, I alternated the pink fabrics. The green one has two alternating fabrics: flowers on a cream background and scrolls with Japanese characters on a green background.

Close ups:

I cut the silk pieces from the same jacket, or from jackets with the same pattern. It has pink, light blue, dark blue, and green flowers. That’s why I used it for the green and pink wall hangings. I sewed the rough edges under but I didn’t bother to finish the edges on the back, because I’m lazy and I figured no one would ever see the back. The goal – eventually – is to hang up these two wall hangings and the two I haven’t finished in a grouping on my wall. I need to finish the other two and I’m not really in a rush because I’ve got so much else going on. Part III of this series may be delayed for a while. Sorry to jump around so much! I actually did these pieces a few months ago, but right now all of my projects are presents that haven’t been given to their recipients yet, so I didn’t want to post those yet.

Months ago (September?) I started working on wall hangings for my apartment. They are still unfinished, because I got side tracked by quilting projects. Since all of my current projects are in progress and I don’t like to post them until they’ve been gifted, I’ve decided to post about my wall hangings for the next few posts.

My friend N gave me beautiful silk Chinese jackets that her mother found in their house, which don’t fit anyone in the family. I wanted to use them in something pretty, and when I decided to make the wall hangings it provided the perfect opportunity. I’ll showcase those in the other posts; this post actually focuses on the only wall hanging that doesn’t include the silk.

I chose a large piece of fabric that’s kind of a berry color. I chose coordinating fabrics that have similar purples in them, one featuring geishas on a cream background and one floral, along with a cream floral print. The pattern I used is a large rectangle edged in squares. I had specific measurements I wanted (to cover something on my wall), so the size of my squares wasn’t perfectly matched to the size of my rectangle. I cut smaller berry-colored rectangles for the border, as well. I cut the pieces several months before I put them together, and when I went to sew the border I couldn’t remember how I’d originally designed it. I ended up creating an asymmetrical layout, as you can see in the picture.

You can see that I inserted the small berry rectangles among the squares in the border somewhat haphazardly (in order to create borders that were of equal length). They were still too small for the size of the large rectangle I’d cut, so I had to trim it. I think I may have misplaced some of the small berry rectangles in between cutting them and when I sewed the whole thing together.

I wanted to decorate the large berry rectangle. It has a subtle print but it looks very plain from far away. I found this quilting motif online:

I outlined the motif and then hand-drew the interior parts of the design on the rectangle. I drew the motif four times and then embroidered (I guess it should be called embroidery, since it’s only one layer of fabric, so I wasn’t quilting) with cream thread. I used a sashiko stitch (or what I imagine to be a sashiko stitch). I think it came out so pretty.