Wow. The Quilting Arts "Go Green," 5" x 5" challenge quilts sprouted in our offices like young shoots after an April rain. By the time the deadline arrived on May 1, we had nearly 300 mini quilts!
We can't believe some of the things our readers re-used and recycled to make these quilted wonders (such as felted cat fur, broken CDs, and fruit stickers).
We'll be featuring many of these mini-quilts in the August/September issue of Quilting Arts Magazine, but here's a little preview from Linda Edkins Wyatt, who started experimenting and just couldn't stop! Pictured are 16 of her recycled, mini-quilt experiments.
Says Linda: "The 'Go Green!' recycling challenge made me look at everything around me with a new eye:
"I started grabbing rags out of the cleaning bin, not to dust with, but to dye and overprint, and collecting what would usually be considered trash.
"I painted used Tyvek mailing envelopes and cardboard coffee sleeves and hoarded tidbits of thread, cloth and yarn, which I stitched into vibrant, textural 'scrappy' cloth.
"I tried new concepts, like dyeing facial cleansing cloths and painting on them with Lumiere, tie-dyeing ripped t-shirts with beet juice saved from dinner, and hanging a dripping colander of raspberries over a stained piece of muslin.
"My inner '60s flower-child was awakened as I melted wax over an old, worn, pale pink shirt of my husband's and made my first batiks in 30 years.
"The hard part was whittling my collection down to just one piece to send in for the challenge, so I decided to honor all the different experiments by making a series that would document the many methods I tried. I discovered that even if you don't have a big budget for art supplies, there is a limitless amount of free materials available-it's just a matter of looking at trash from a different perspective."
