Gorgeous Batiks

A person emailed and told me she needed to have a quilt quilted. She told me it was her first quilt and that I was to expect a ton of mistakes. I kind of hesitated, but figured that I could quilt it anyhow, unless it arrived with holes and enormous pillows of fabric. I pleasantly surprised to open the box and find a lap quilt made from the most succulent array of batiks. Though I sew with batiks rather infrequently, I totally love them.
Despite the forewarning, I didn't find any gross problems with this quilt at all. Maybe there were pieces where she did not want them, but it was relatively square, and seams matched up nicely. She has made this for a nephew so no loopy feminine quilting was requested.

After seeing the fabrics, I chose a rusty-brown thread. In some places, it looks more red than brown, bringing out the red batiks which I think are so fabulous. I decided to go with a simple wave-like or flame-like quilting which follows the logs of the piecing. That detail, however, is really only evident from the back of the quilt. As I have said before, sometimes nice surprises are on the back.

I admire new quilters...they have not been around enough to not try some things. Like, for example, I'll bet you didn't know that the black inner border of this quilt is of all things ultra-suede! It didn't press really well, and it caused my thread to break a handfull of time, but it has a nice textural effect. As a seasoned quilter of many eons, I'd never have tried the ultrasuede. Sometimes it pays to be a novice.

I have a few orders of business to attend to this weekend and early next week. A local quilt shop wants to see some samples of my work. They called 2 days after I mailed off 2 nice and semi-custom quilts. After they see some quilting, they will refer clients to me. Right now, I only have a couple of pantograph quilts, and that is not really what I want to show. I went out today and bought some wide fabric that I will partition and quilt sections in different patterns, and then do some border varieties. I also am frantically trying to complete a quilt top from some sampler swap blocks (orange and pink ones) so that I can custom quilt each block differently. THis may become a donated raffle quilt for Project Linus, or I may just sell it on Etsy. Don't know yet. Either way, I have a bit of work before Bonnie's quilt arrives mid-week!

Happy quilting!