Bits Of Whimsy Quilts: CRYSTAL WATERS QUILT 💦

This Crystal Waters Quilt is made from hand dyed batik fabric using a Cross and Crown pattern. The fabric is dyed to resemble tropical crystal waters at various times of the day ... midnight waters ... quiet morning waters and sparkling afternoon waters. I made this quilt for my great niece, Devan, who lives in the midwest but loves to visit places with tropical waters 🏝 It's my hope that this bohemian quilt will remind her of warmer climates in the midst of icy cold midwestern winters.

I don't always love my quilts when they're done but I love this one. I was tempted to keep it for myself. I just love all those colors❣️

Before I started sewing this quilt I washed all the hand dyed batik fabric with Synthrapol to wash away the extra dye from the batik dying process and set the colors. I also threw in some color catchers to pick up the dye so that it wouldn't wash back into the fabric. I divided the fabric into several loads ... dark, medium and light colors and then did separate loads for the larger backing and background fabrics. Then I had to press the fabric and treat it with Best Press to give it its shape back. Once this process was done I cut out the pieces and and got them ready for sewing.

The blocks are fun to put together. I love the fabric colors in this quilt. It has a very bohemian look to it.

The most difficult part of this quilt was choosing thread colors. The backing is such a dark blue that it's almost black and the background fabric on the quilt top is a soft white pattern. When that happens you have to pick a bobbin thread that won't come up to the top and show in dark little dots across the white background. Yet, you want something for the backing that looks nice too. I ended up picking a light blue for the bobbin which complemented the lighter blue spots on the dark backing fabric and a MicroQuilter thread in white for the top thread to do all the stitch in the ditch work around the piecing. Then I ventured out into a public place for the first time since March and braved the quilt store to pick out some matching thread for the piece work. I ended up with Violet, Raven, Hazel, Sea Green, Sky and Denim ... all in Glide thread.

Scraps for the thread matching process.

Once on the longarm I started the top border only to realize that I had forgot to pick out a thread color for that so it was back to the quilt shop again that day. Once that grape thread arrived home I did the top border and worked my way down the quilt to do all the stitching in the ditch and then the bottom border. Then I rolled the quilt back up to do all the background stitching on the white fabric. Then I rolled the quilt back up one last time to do all the quilting in the colorful piece work.

I used Quilter's Dream White Polyester batting in this quilt. Normal batting is a cream to light brown color and if you use that it shows through the white in the quilt top and makes it look dingy. Using the white makes that quilt top shine.

The Binding Baby

To bind the quilt I chose a color that had both blue and purple in it so that it would connect that midnight blue backing with all of the different shades of purples and blues on the quilt top.

It's not easy to photograph a quilt and get the quilting to show. I have to shoot it in the semi-dark and then go back in and brighten all of the settings. That's what I did in the above picture to show the quilting.

I also made a matching quilted drawstring bag to gift the quilt in. Now I just have to ship everything off to Devan. I hope she loves her quilt!