Way, way, way back in the day, when I was in college, I took a class in alternative processes in photography. We explored blueprinting (cyanotype), brown printing (using silver nitrate as a light sensitive emulsion), and gum-bichromate printing process. Though it was a photography class, I chose to do a few of my projects on fabric.
It was 1976(yikes!), the bicentennial year and there was a renewed interest in making quilts. So, I decided to make a quilt out of blueprinted fabric (see above). I used the pillowcase method to bind the quilt, by sewing the front and back together, leaving an opening large enough to turn the quilt right sides out. Then, I shoved the batting inside and sewed the opening shut. Making a quarter inch seam allowance on each of the blueprinted images, I pinned them on top of the quilt sandwich and sewed them on with my sewing machine.
I had already done a black and white photo project using a blue oxford button-down shirt. I had photographed it in as many different ways I could think of, including folded, crumpled, wet, draped over a fence, hung on a clothesline, etc. I recently found my original black and white photos, and scanned them into my computer.
Using an image editing program, I manipulated the photos to sharpen them and change the color. I decided to make small individual quilts of each image, which I will put in my next post.
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