Alpine Wonder - Phase 1

I decided that I needed to sneak a quilt of my own in the quilting line up and really didn't want another winter to pass with out finishing this one.  The pattern is called Alpine Wonder and I bought it as a kit a few years back.  When I completed the top I had only had my longarm for a few months and didn't think that my skills matched my vision for what I wanted,  so I put it away.  I got busy with customer quilts last fall and didn't make time for this one - that had to change.

My machine was empty but I didn't really have anything suitable for backing, but I did have lots of white.  I decided to soften the bright white with a little tea staining.  

I began by heating water in my stock pot and adding some tea bags.  (This whole process was a little but of guess work.)

I brought the water to the boil and let the tea steep for a few minutes until it was quite stong, and then removed the tea bags.

I removed the pot from the heat and added my bright white fabric. Be sure to stir well.  I let it sit for about an hour. I would recommend stirring it quite often to avoid any dark or light spots as the fabric peaks out of the top of the water.

I drained the fabric in my kitchen sink and wrung out as much tea as possible.

Then I let it sit in a cool water rinse for about 20 minutes to help set the tea stains and rinse out any residual tea. You may want to do this more than once.  

After the rinse I popped it into the dryer and here is the end result - a much more subtle backing fabric.  Since this is only for the back of a wall hanging, and it likely won't see the laundry, this seemed like a quick and no mess method for tweaking my backing fabric.

Here is a look at how the quilting turned out - almost finished!