Batik backings- prewashing

I recommend pre-washing all backings, but especially batiks, for a few reasons.  Prewashing will soften up the fabric.  Unwashed batiks can sometimes cause skipped stitiches, and uneven tension, because it's hard for the needle to penetrate the fabric.  Prewashing really makes the batiks much easier to work with.  Another reason to prewash is to remove excess dyes.  Here is a great example- look at all that blue dye in the water!  Wow!  Without prewashing, all that dye is probably going to migrate to your top the first time the completed quilt is washed. 
It only takes a few minutes to run the sink full of lukewarm water, and swish it around a few times.  Repeat until the water runs clear, then spin out the water, and stick in the the dryer on low heat until the backing is dry, and you're ready to go. 

April 18, 2011

This is a fun scrappy quilt, done with the "Bubbles" quilting pattern.  A nice whimsical pattern to go with the fun fabrics. 

Here's a Christmas French Braid quilt.  What a soft, warm quilt to snuggle up with on a cold winter night, with some hot chocolate.  The lighting must not have been the best when I took these- they look a little washed out.  The colors were very rich & deep.  This was quilting using the Festive Holly pattern.

A quilt that I made

I actually finished a bed size quilt of my own- it's going in J's bedroom.  He moved to a bigger bed from a bunk bed, and needed something to fit.  This was made with lots of red/white/blue scraps.  The pattern came from Scraps & Shirttails by Bonnie Hunter. 

New patterns April 2011