Batik

This was the first Jelly roll Quilt I did.


Bought from Crafts and Quilts at the Heart of the Shires - it was so bright I just couldn't resist.


I got out my box of Plain fabrics and pulled out all the brights. I asked my 11 year old if he wanted a new quilt, and between the 2 of us we designed it.


He excluded a few of the strips that were more Pink, then we cut the rest into 10 1/2 inch strips. We worked out that we should put on average 3 strips in each block, and Joseph decided which Batiks went with each Plain fabric, and the positioning of the strips. We varied the widths and positions of the plain strips.


I must tell you something he said, that makes me soooooo proud.
"It's a shame we have to cut them up" he said.

"What would you do with them" I asked.

"Just look at them" he said, stroking one. Brilliant - a child who loves fabric!!!!



I wanted him to sew it as well but he wasn't keen. I just had my old Frister Rossman machine at the time and it goes too fast for him. I am now the proud owner of a Janome QC4900 and he has done a bit on that.



We arranged the blocks on his floor.

The finished Quilt is 50 by 80 inches. I hate sandwiching large quilts so I did it in 2 halves, top and bottom. I love Quilting in sections, it makes it so much more manageable.

I tacked the wadding to the backing ( a bright green batik) . I joined the blocks into rows, and stitched the rows of 5 squares to the sandwich. This meant that once I had joined the 2 halves together all I needed to do was quilt down, firstly in the ditch ( furrow!) between the squares, then down another ditch , moving across to another seam as needed.

The Pink strips that were put aside have found their way into a bag - but it's very much work in progress - I'm trying to do a structured bag, it's the first I've ever done and I've hit a brick wall.