A Batik Quilt for Alex

This is a quilt top that Alex sent me earlier this year; the center is a combination of pinwheels and four-patches done in batik fabrics. The border, composed entirely of squares, shows off Alex's great sense of color. This is the second quilt I've done for her this year with the blue and coral color scheme and I think it really works!

Alex suggested that I just grid the center and do something fun in the border, but I was really resisting that idea. I wanted to do something traditional, but less predictable. I decided to treat this quilt as a medallion quilt with a quilting design in the center and the work flowing outward from there.

The first step was choosing a center design; the stencil at left is HH32-9 from The Stencil Company. The 9" size was a little large for the space, but I was repeating it four times, so I lined up the corners and let the pattern merge where it overlapped.

The 5" wide border design, LD21-5, is used twice; once to surround the center and again in the final border of the quilt.

You'll see the backing fabric in a moment; it is a dark batik print. I chose InvisiFil, color 410, for the bobbin. InvisiFil is a very fine 100wt polyester that comes in 30 colors and blends beautifully. I've used it for ditch stitching and I love it for the back of quilts that are very "printy" where I don't want a strong thread effect. InvisiFil is produced by WonderFil, a Canadian company. For the center design, I used Mettler Silk Finish 100% cotton thread in color 515, a medium tan.

I used the same top thread for the border surrounding the medallion, then stitched straight lines out to the inner border using Wonder Monofilament thread in clear from YLI.

Here's the back -- you can see the first border and the straight stitching.
I'm very happy with the way the InvisiFil looks-- it shows the quilting, but doesn't interfere with the fabric print.

A small zigzag design for the narrow inner border.....

Since the outer border was divided into two distinct colors, I used two different threads: The coral/yellow/purple variegated is WonderFil's Tutti, color TL106; the blue/green variegated is Rainbows, color 815, from Superior Threads.

Here is a portion of the border where the colors meet and you can see both top threads.

A portion of the quilt -- I took a couple of pictures of the whole quilt, but couldn't capture the quilting detail, but you can play Inspector Clue-Sew and figure it out, right?

Sometimes Alex tells me what is in store for a particular quilt: Whether it will be on TheQuiltShow.com or in Quilt Life Magazine, a gift for someone, or ? She didn't say anything about this one -- maybe she's keeping it for herself? Or publishing a pattern? We'll just have to wait and see!