Sometimes, when working on a quilt, parts of the original design are adjusted and changed as I proceed with the project.  This was the case when I was making the large butterfly quilt that I described in August 2016 posts.

Early in the design process, I had thought that a rainbow shibori border would look nice.  To create the border,  I made four 9″ x 90″ shibori panels with red, blue and yellow dye.  These panels turned out lovely.

The next step was to dye the fabric that the butterflies would be appliqued onto.  When planning out this step, I changed my mind about the border and decided that I wanted the butterflies to be in a more “natural” environment.  So, I made four more panels of shibori that looked like grass.  This change was perfect for the quilt at that time.

However, I had the rainbow shibori panels already dyed.  Not knowing what I wanted to use them for, I just stored them in my fabric stash and didn’t really think about them for a few years.

Recently, when organizing my fabric, I ran across these panels and decided I really needed to use these in a quilt. Utilizing a simple triangle quilt design, I combined the shibori  fabric with a black fabric.  This was a quick project that turned out really nice. I love the optical illusion that the dyed fabric creates.