Batik Wall Hanging for D - oh the joy of finishing a long put aside project!

A finish!  This batik wall hanging/table runner was started in 2010 and finished yesterday!

I had the great good fortune to work with a wonderful team of people in the 18 months I lived and worked in Singapore.  One of these was D.  He was one of my key team members and a huge support to me both professionally and personally.  D had a special birthday, one with a "0" on the end while we were in Singapore, and I started making a gift for him.

Unfortunately for both of us, not long after I had begun it, we unexpectedly returned to New Zealand, and in all the pressure and organisation the project was put aside.  Embarrassingly that was 4+years ago!

D loved Indonesain batiks, so before we left Singapore I spent a few wonderful hours in the rabbit warren of treasures that is the Mustafa Centre, Little India in Singapore.  The Mustafa Centre is a big old department store that stocks almost anything you can think of in its crowded aisles.  In the basement are fabrics (I seldom bought straight fabric as it tended to be synthetic) and stack after stack of cotton saris, each containing about 1.5 to 3 m of fabric for $14 to $20 Singapore dollars.  I found one that particular reminded me of D in cream, gold and rust.

Around the same time I picked up a pattern from Quilts and Calicos in Tanglin Mall called Kasuri, which had a strong masculine feel, so it seemed like a plan to utilise the 5 inch 'square in a square' block from this pattern in a project for D.  About half the blocks had been made before the project was put aside in 2010.

So once I had my new Perth workroom set up, I got this project out, and now, some three weeks later it is finally finished!

I used the beautiful patterned section of the batik on the back (seen above and below).  As it wasn't quite long enough, I split it through the middle with some fabric left from the front.

Measuring 25 inches by 45 inchs, the piece is free motion quilted around the flower in the centre so it stands out, and ditch stitched around the blocks, so if used as a table runner it should stand plenty of washing.

So good to be able to finally send this off to D and cross off one more unfinished project.