Well the sewing room didn’t really get cleaned like it needed to. Â I had good intentions and in my defense I did pick up a few things. Â Between not feeling well and getting sucked in by my Talkin’ Turkey quilt it didn’t happen…but this did.
Can’t tell what it is?
If you guessed Bonnie Hunter’s pattern Garlic Knots, you’d be right.
What you probably never would have guessed is that I am doing the entire thing in batiks!! Â Can you believe it? Â I know, I know….that’s very new for me. Â I never sew with batiks. Â I figured it was time. Â One of the reasons I had put it off is that scrappy is still my favorite and I didn’t think I had enough different fabrics. Â I was wrong. Â I do. Â I have plenty for this quilt…and likely another one or two.
I’m kind of excited to be venturing out and trying something different.
The babies at childcare have gotten much better at sleeping over nap time when the older kids are sleeping. Â Three times last week I had a break with no kids awake!! Â Yahoo. Â That left me time to start sorting through my batik box and see if there were more scraps to go with the ones I got from the lady that lives in my town that gave me a fabric a bit ago. Â You might remember I had planned on making Boxed Kites with her scraps….well I changed my mind. Â I took her scraps and found quite a few batiks in there and that’s what started my batik adventure. Â It was just the push I needed. Â Others had given me scraps too including Helen and Carolyn…as well as others.
I likely won’t be sewing on this right away. Â I need to decide what to do for the background. Â I’m debating on scrappy white/creams or all the same. Â Whatever I do, I have to get to town and buy the fabric. Â At this point, all the batik fabrics that I have are colored.
I also have to reconfigure the yardage I need because, of course, I can’t do anything easy. Â I’m making it bigger. Â Imagine that?!
I have an idea hatching on two other quilts to cut out too….I guess I’m jumping into this batik adventure with two feet!
You know it’s big if you’re enlarging one of Bonnie’s quilts! Just as a warning, Jo, I’ve found that batiks are woven a bit tighter than most quilting cotton. It isn’t bad, just different. I’m English paper piecing a Grandmother’s Flower Garden as a road project and the path between is a gorgeous green batik. I can definitely tell that that batik is tighter than the others. Maybe it’s the hand piecing.
I enjoy working with batiks and their rich colors. I suspect a scrap quilter will quickly get comfortable with batiks since you are used to lots of shading and color variety. As the first commenter noted, they are more tightly woven due to multiple wetting & drying cycles to do the color. I really only notice it with hand sewing.
I recently made a quilt with Western batiks and absolutely loved sewing with them! Now I am trying to gather enough to make another quilt with batiks. You will enjoy working with them.
I have only made two quilts that were entirely made of Batiks and I thought they were gorgeous, yours will be also. I have a small stash of them and I use them in my civil war scrappy quilts. I cant wait to see how yours progresses.
Hi Jo!
A couple of years ago, I discovered that batiks really sparkle on a background of scrappy whites with color prints. As I was doing one of Bonnie’s mysteries, that’s what I pulled for all the background and it worked beautifully!
Oh, you’re making it bigger? Really?
I haven’t made a batik quilt yet but almost always use them when I make quilted church banners. They have a depth and richness in the colors that enhances the message of the banner! I went to an embroidery retreat last weekend and I’m cleaning my sewing room as I move things back in. Almost finished. Of course I’m embroidering quilt blocks while I do it so it doesn’t feel like wasted time…I don’t like cleaning!!!
Well, I would like to know what I am doing wrong with batiks. I love the colors, but have found them to be stretchier in quilts than regular quilting fabric. Seriously, what am I doing wrong?