“Cyanotype” from Wise Craft Quilts is filled with poems, sketches, and other mementos from my kids.

When I wrote Wise Craft Quilts, I was interested in creating a book that had all kinds of quilts that had some sort of meaningful element to them. Quilts with fabric that has meaning is certainly important to my work, but what if you have memories you want to preserve in a quilt, but no meaningful fabric tied to those memories to use?

“Cyanotype” from Wise Craft Quilts.

I was inspired to create the project Cyanotype for this reason. Cyanotype is a process of exposing a pre-treated piece of paper or fabric to the sun, with an image over it. The sun exposes the paper or fabric, but leaves behind a silhouette of whatever is laid over the surface.

Above, a sun print on paper that I made of the leaves on the Japanese Maple tree that Peter gave me for our 4th anniversary. It moved with us to each new home until we moved to New Mexico, it was just too big to dig up. Now it’s memorialized on our hallway gallery wall.

First of all, I think Cyanotype blue is just about the prettiest color of blue there is. Secondly, sun prints (what this quilt essentially is) are a process that my kids thought were magical when they were younger (I still find it magical). It delighted them to see a flower or leaf they’d collected be preserved on a piece of sun print paper.

Could we create that on fabric?

I set about looking for pre-treated cyanotype cotton fabrics to create the quilt in the book. I also used clear sheets of acetate to hold down the items flat on the surface of the fabric in order to expose them to the sun and avoid shadows. Once you have those two key components, the rest is easy and fun!

After all this time I am so happy to be able to offer pre-treated cyanotype cotton fabric packs in the shop! There are two options to choose from, Cyanotype blue with lighter blue silhouettes (this is what I used for the Cyanotype quilt in the book), and Cyanotype blue with white silhouettes (like the image of the Japanese Maple above). You get ten 8″ x 8″ squares per pack. Which is plenty to have a fun afternoon sun printing with the kids this summer.

Or buy multiple packs and make a whole quilt. Full instructions for how I made my quilt are in Wise Craft Quilts.