Quilting the Batik Skyline to highlight Banyan Batik Broken Glass fabric

Today is the last day of the Batik Skyline quilt we’ve been making all week featuring the Banyan Batik, Broken Glass batik line that is available to quilt stores this month!

In yesterday’s post the bold batik street unit was created and joined to the buildings to complete the wallhanging front. Now it’s time to finish the project by quilting it – which means we need a backing and some batting.

For this wallhanging I decided to use several of the Broken Glass fabrics to create a modern pieced backing.

There’s enough fabric listed in this project to piece the back, but feel free to use one piece of your favorite Broken Glass fabric that you want.

Sew together the following pieces to make the backing:

9½″ x 20″ dark blue
11¾″ x 20″ gray
2″ x 20″ bright pink
10″ x 20″ blue gray

I sewed all of the seams open except the pink ones which I sewed to one side.

Cut a piece of batting the same size as your wallhanging top.

Cut the pieced backing to the same size as well. The size should be close to 20″ high x 32″ wide; the instructions provided are for using the envelope method of joining the layers with right sides together then turning the wallhanging out with a finished edge. If you want to quilt it and add binding, then cut the batting and backing fabric larger than the quilt top and trim square after quilting. (You’ll also need to use another Broken Glass fabric to make the binding.)

Lay the batting on your pinning surface and place the backing on top of it, right side up.

Place the wallhanging top right side down on top and pin around the outside edge to keep all three layers together. Leave a turning gap of between 3″ and 4″ on the right side where there are no seams.

Change the needle to a quilting needle and change the thread to a subtle color that will contrast with the dark batiks; I chose a light blue to outline the buildings then switched to a variegated gray thread for the clouds.

Sew ¼″ around the edge of the wall hanging, backstitching at each side of the turning gap. Once done, check that all three layers are caught in the seam then clip the corners and pull the wall hanging through the turning gap.

Push the corners out using your finger or a ‘quilty’ gadget. Use your fingers to ‘roll’ or smooth out the seam edge so that it lies flat. Finger press the seam allowance flat at the turning gap and pin the layers together.

Insert safety pins throughout the wall hanging surface so that it’s ready to quilt. I quilted in the ditch down the top sidewalk first then ¼″ away from the half rectangle rooftops and around the high-rise building.

Keep quilting until you’re happy with the density and the wallhanging looks evenly quilted. It’s important to quilt it evenly to reduce the likelihood of it rippling while hanging.

I thoroughly enjoyed quilting around the subtleties in the batik fabric to create some clouds!

Working with my son to design a project using the Broken Glass fabric was really fun. I’m sure that he would be just as eager to design again with these fabrics – maybe next time a sunrise scene! I know the wallhanging will have a happy life as a backdrop for videos and as an early artifact to showcase my son’s love of designing.

I encourage you to go out and get some of your own Broken Glass fabric and use my son’s design – or create your own!