Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Flannel Leaf Quilt



One night, as I was laying in bed daydreaming about quilting things (um, yes. I do this. Fairly frequently, actually), I had a brilliant idea. I could use batik fabric to make fall-colored leaves, then quilt the veins and the stems. On a black background, the colors of the batiks would really stand out and look awesome.

I made no progress on the idea until CJ and I went to a quilt show in Vancouver. We walked in and were immediately distracted by shiny things. $45 later, we turned around and LO! there was a book with *batik flannel*! I mean, what could be better? It's BATIK! AND it's flannel!

I ended up spending a lot of money at this booth. First, I bought a set of fat quarters that were in fall leaf colors. I coveted a quilt kit made of other, more brightly colored batik flannels, but managed to hold off on buying it. I managed to hold off on buying it for HOURS. It was, in fact, the last thing that I bought before leaving the quilt show.

But this post is not about that quilt (which I haven't started yet) - it's about my batik flannel fall leaf quilt.

Upon searching for a leaf pattern, I discovered that my falling leaf idea is far from unique. However, I have yet to see it executed in batik flannel, so I think I'm still ahead of the game.


This is the overall plan I came up. It with alternates large and small leaves in a black background with the leaves rotated various directions so as to make them look like they're blowing around. The large leaves are 9"x9", while the small leaves are 6"x6" with a black border to bring them up to 9". The colored squares around the outside will be a random mix of all the batiks used in the leaves.

This is roughly what the I have planned for the quilting inside and outside the leaves. I want the background quilting in the black to be sort of reminiscent of blowing wind and I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet... but since I haven't even finished the quilt top yet, I'm not too worried.


Here are the leaves that I have finished so far. The colors don't show very well (it's a cell phone picture); they're MUCH brighter in person. My favorites are the lower-right leaf and the middle-top leaf. They're a bright orange-with-red batik that has darker reddish sections. It looks the most "fall leafy" to me. I also really like the yellow-and-green leaves. The other ones will make fabulous background leaves and allow the bright ones to really stand out. I haven't sewn any of the small leaves yet.

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