Personally, I like batiks with marbles, other batiks, with dark color on color prints, with solids in the same color family. Not so much regular prints and I can't fathom calico. I like my quilts to have a very earthy rich tone to them. Batiks carry that off as well as textured solids and marbles. A friend f mine made a gorgeous strip quilt with batik 2 1/2 inch strips and a light, off white textured fabric for the background. Talk about stunning display of the beauty of the batik fabric. I used the same strips but with a textured black and it is... intense. tim in san jose