I am making a quilt for my MIL and it has been the project from !@#$! ran out of fabric twice, sewed the blocks in wrong order several different times, caming up short on batting. I thought all the headaches were over and I could enjoy quilting, NOT, The batiks are tough to needle, but I can deal with that. But dogone it I can't see my markings on the front of the quilt, I've used a mechanical pencil, yellow,pink,green and white chalk sewline pencils and still the fabric is too busy! thought I would baste around my blocks and mark on the back so out came all my stitches. I thought this seems to be working out just fine, feathers look nice and puffy but when I look at the top, Nothing, can't even tell I quilted anything no puffiness you can barely see the stitching. Am I doing something wrong, will it look better after being washed, should I just fight it and work from the top or continue from the backside. Oh I wish my DH didn't tell my MIL that I was making this for her, now I'm stuck and I just want to be done with it! I'm so ready to make this a ufo for a very very very long time! Any thoughts and suggestions would be most appriciated. And thanks for letting me vent!

my advice which I give all my students is if you can't see the decorative quilting then do something simple to stitch the layers together. You could do in the ditch or better 1/4" out from the seam in the busy prints and do the more decorative in the lighter areas where you can see it. There are some nice triangular stentils that might work in the corners of the lighter sections. It also appears your thread basting might not be tight enough. The layers appear to be too loose.

Batiks are really tough to handquilt.

This has worked for me in the past, but I'm not guaranteeing it.

Stitch in the ditch around the large batik diamonds and the smaller center diamonds. Secure the edge of the quilt by machine with a large basting stitch within the 1/4" seam allowance. Now wash the quilt to try and loose up the batik fabric. I did not dry the quilt in the machine, I layed it out flat and let it dry. Once the quilt dried, I was able to hand quilt, but did find that I had to use a larger needle than usual and my stitches were larger than normal as well.

I find that quilting from the front gives more puff to the quilting, always less so on the back, I think that is why you don't see the pattern on the front.

I would also use a contrasting thread color if you want the stitches to show more. Maybe a nice variegated thread in the blue tones.

Good luck, I have alot of ufo's from H$*) in my studio! I can feel your frustration.

If all else fails, machine quilt!

Looks to me like gal288 has given you some great advice. I just wanted to say I only dream of being able to have such beautiful stitches by hand quilting. Your feathered wreath on the back is outstanding.

I tried to hand quilt a batik. It didn't go well at all, and I machine quilted it.

very pretty blocks & lovely quilting

Are you using a hoop to hold the fabric? I looks like your backing fabric is looser than the top. When both the top and backing are equal tension, I get good definition on both top and bottom. But I usually use a poly batting with more loft. I do not get definition with cotton or a thin poly.

For marking I use a blue wash out marker or a white wax pencil. These have always worked for me on busy fabrics.

I think since the light areas are so small, I would just do some simple quilting on the whole top. Even colored thread would not show enough to add to the quilting. And it is faster also.

Did you try the Frixion pens everyone has been talking about? The black one should be dark enough to see. BUT TEST FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!! I haven't had a chance to use it yet but I've seen someone post on here that she tested various different ways of getting it out (folks were saying that if it got too cold the marks would come back). She had success with washing the quilt afterwards.

Once it is washed, the puffiness may show up more :wink:
I like it, the back is so pretty, it is a reversible quilt! :D:D:D