Quilting options for Banyan Batiks Baralla disappearing 9 patch quilt

Happy Friday everyone! I’m sad to say that today wraps up my spotlight on the fabulous new Banyan Batiks Baralla Collection. I’ve had such a great time working with the various prints from the collections! I hope you’ve been with me all week as I’ve taken you through the steps to create a fun and fast disappearing 9 patch quilt.

Preparing the Quilt Backing

I like to piece my backings with the seams running horizontally whenever possible, so take 3½ yards of backing fabric, rip in half and seam together along one selvedge edge using a ¾” wide seam.

The selvedges of many fabrics, particularly batiks, are often not perfectly straight, so don’t worry if the edges of the fabric aren’t aligned exactly. Close, with no puckers or diagonal wrinkles is close enough. The reason for such a wide seam allowance is that many selvages are quite wide, so when stitching a wide ¾” seam I will later trim my seam allowance down to ¼”, thereby trimming off the tightly woven selvedge edge, which could cause puckering and distortion on the back of the quilt.

You decide if you wish to press this seam open or pressed closed to one side. Since the backing will be layered so the seam is horizontal across the quilt, I like pressing the seam down as I’ll be quilting from the top to the bottom, so I won’t be fighting that seam.

Selecting a Quilt Design

With so many options and designs available, it’s sometimes challenging to choose how, and which design to use to quilt your quilt. I wrote about this in my previous QUILTsocial post Quilting options for a Banyan Classics rail fence quilt.

For my Banyan Batiks Baralla Collection quilt, I was inspired by the block printing used to create the designs on the fabric, so I decided to quilt each block of the quilt separately, as opposed to doing a simpler edge to edge, all-over design.

Binding

Since I’m a big advocate of using every little last inch of fabric to minimize waste and maximize the return on the investment of the fabric, I almost always use my leftover scraps to create the binding for my quilts. You’ll have enough fabric leftover from the various fabrics used for the quilt top to piece a scrappy binding, OR, you could use the cut-offs from your quilt backing to create your binding once the quilt has been quilted and squared up. The decision is yours for whatever look you’d like.

For this quilt, with the many prints, and with no borders to rest the eye, I decided to use the cut-offs from the backing fabric so my binding would be one color/print. This is just my particular choice, but for your quilt, you can do whatever you wish. That’s the fun of being creative, you’re in complete control!

Regardless of which option you choose, your next decision will be HOW to bind your quilt. There are LOADS of helpful suggestions here on QUILTsocial.

I have a very slick, nifty attachment for my brand of the sewing machine which allows me to finish my bindings very quickly, so ask your brand’s dealer what they may have available to help. In my case, I cut my strips 2″ wide which produces a ½” finished binding.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this fun and fast disappearing 9 patch quilt featuring the fabulous new Banyan Batiks Baralla Collection. Be sure to check out your local quilt shop to get yours today!

Until next time, Happy Sewing!