Magic Carpet Quilt

Working on the souvenirs committee for Christian Youth Theater's production of Aladdin, I was inspired by the jewel tones and rhinestones we embellished everything with, to design this quilt for our Opening Night Opportunity Basket. It accompanied several gift cards and a free tuition to a CYT class.

My initial thought was to make a "Gold Coin Quilt" with lots of gold fabrics weaved into the design. I looked at traditional Chinese Coin quilts and made my coins longer and leaner than the standard. It was only after the quilt was completed and someone on the committee said, "It looks like a magic carpet" that the name stuck. The quilt measures 34" x 56".

The quilt top is made entirely of batik fabrics. I cut each coin 1.5" x 5" and sewed them in pairs. I sewed a long length of coins to a long length of the solid blue batik to complete the layout. I'm going to tweak the instructions for making the basic section/block for the quilt, adding more to make different sizes. This was just a first run with revisions and alternate border ideas still to come.

For the quilting, I stitched in the ditch between the sections and between each coin. I had pressed the seams to one side on the coins but next time I will press the seams open and perhaps quilt an edge-to-edge design across the entire surface of the quilt.

I used Sew Art smoke monofilament nylon thread in the top for the ditch quilting and Presencia 50/3 in the bobbin (gold to match the backing fabric). For the background fill, which was all the blue batik fabric, I used Presencia 50/3 blue to quilt the curly-q design to give the quilt..er, magic carpet, some movement!

For the binding, I used a gold batik, that looked like the gold coins I was thinking about all along, to frame the finished quilt.


Hannah was a curtain warmer and a part of the Genie Chorus, pictured here with her #1 fan, sister Becca.
Hannah and her lifelong friend, Emily, who portrayed a friend of the Princess Jasmine.

Hannah and Haley, two peas in a pod who became good friends during this production!


Copyright ©2010, Sharon Baggs