5 Things I Learned Working With Batiks
Recently, Banyan Batiks reached out to me to ask if I would be interested in working with some of their fabrics to show how batiks can be used in modern quilting. I had never really worked with batiks and always rather avoided that shelf at the local quilt shop because the prints and colours just didn't speak to me.
However, Banyan Batiks have a wonderful line of very modern looking batik prints called Hexies that I was immediately drawn to. I decided to use the Hexies for my Rainbow Illusions quilt that was published in Make Modern issue 67.
What makes a batik fabric modern?
Traditional batiks tend to be on the darker or more muted end of the spectrum, and often feature many different colours in one print. They traditionally use motifs from nature in their prints, such as seashells and other marine life, paisleys, animal or botanic motifs.
In modern quilts, we usually want to incorporate brighter colours, as well as light, medium, and dark values to give a quilt design movement and depth. And at least in my quilts, I often use fabrics that read as a single colour and don't have a lot of other colours mixed in. For a lot of my designs I tend to use fabrics like a paint palette, and if I need yellow in a certain spot, I don't want that yellow to have a purple swirl in it.
These more modern batiks fit that description much better. They offer lighter and brighter prints as well as more modern geometric motifs (and also some really fun whimsical ones like the Love Notes collection, or the cute little ghosts in Spooky)
5 Things I Learned About Batiks
So, being a relative newbie to working with batiks, I thought I'd share what I learned making my first (almost) all batik quilt. If you're new to batiks, too, I hope these will help you decide whether you want to give batiks a try, too.
- Batiks are much stiffer than regular quilting cotton. They feel like they've been starched already, so that makes them super easy to work with. They don't shift as much when cutting or sewing, so cuts are very precise and points are much easier to line up.
- Batiks can bleed, so wash a batik quilt with lots of colour catchers, and remove it from the washer immediately and dry it. Don't let wet fabrics sit on each other, which can also cause colour transfer. Of course, prewashing would be a good idea. I don't prewash normally, so didn't think to do it with the batiks.
- You can mix batiks with regular quilting cottons. Yup, you don't need to stick to all batiks for a quilt if you don't want to. Modern batiks work very well alongside other modern fabrics, so they don't stick out or clash.
- Thanks to their tighter weave, batiks fray a lot less.
- There is not really a right or wrong side. Due to the wax resist process, the fabric is dyed right through and the motif shows up on both sides. Apparently with some prints you can tell if you look closely enough, but even with those, once they're in the quilt, the two sides look the same.
How about you? Have you ever worked with batiks? If yes, what's your favourite part about them? And if not, do you think you might give it a try?
Love this posting. And, yes I am a batik lover too. I just recently had a lesson which, of course, I had to learn the hard way! I usually don’t prewash my fabric and especially when I am using precuts as I was with a couple of pieces of purple batiks I incorporated into a prayer quilt I was making for a friend. I had also embroidered all the 20+ names of our prayer group into companion blocks. To make a long story short, as I was sewing on the borders at my quilt shop’s all sew, a coke was accidentally spilled on the quilt and one of the deep purple batiks started to run and bleed into the rest of the quilt. As we tried to get the coke out of the top with cold water, the color kept spreading. By the time I got home the quilt looked like someone had splashed a pink strawberry soda all over…but not in a nice way. Like every good quilter I poured a glass of wine and then decided I had nothing to lose by trying to wash it. I am a Quilt Catcher believer! and always have been amazed at how I can save time and water by safely mixing loads of wash that I used to faithfully and carefully separate. After doing a running stitch around the edges of the on-point quilt top (since the borders were not attached) I washed the quilt top placing two catchers in the washer. After four washes, and replacing the Color Catchers with each load, the stray runaway colors were completely gone and the embroidered names were still in tact. Yes, I also used a soap pod but I did not treat the stains with anything. Moral of this story: Prewash your batiks!!! Place precuts in a lingerie bag to keep them from being gobbled up and spewed as something else. Admittedly this is the very first time I have ever had an issue with batiks. But now I will be cautious and plan ahead.
I recommend batiks to beginners so there’s less stress in cutting and piecing. Once they fully understand the concept I’m teaching, dealing with the right/wrong sides of regular cottons is a bit easier.
When I made my first batik quilt I too thought the fabric was a bit stiff, as mentioned, but now that it is a couple years old and has been washed and used it is the softest most lovely fabric of all.
I love them for foundation piecing because they are the same on both sides. No problems with which side is the right side.
I have worked with batiks and live them for all the positive reasons you have mentioned!
Like, their reversible quality, their stiffness helps for precision piecing, and handling, and I love their rich colours and endless choices!