Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Island Batik Ambassadors It's All Up To You Challenge

This month's Island Batik Ambassadors Challenge is called It's All Up To You.  We got to pick anything!  There were so many amazing choices!

I decided I wanted to play with Claudia Pfeil's gorgeous new collection called Melody.  I had a ten inch stack of this beautiful springy collection.  Now that I'd picked my fabric and a cream for a background, what to make?  


I was chatting about this with my mom and she was talking about the hunter's star quilt she'd just made.  It was so gorgeous so I decided to make one too using her Accuquilt die.



Cutting on my Accuquilt is so fast!  I was doing cutting these beautiful pieces in no time at all.


I'm a pinner.  Pin. Pin. Pin.  It makes sending the pieces through the machine so quick and easy.


All sewn into triangles and ready to sew into block using Aurifil thread and Schmetz Needles of course!


I layered my quilt with Hobbs Batting 100% cotton batting.  It's one of my favorites.  Then I had fun quilting on my Handiquilter Capri.  So much fun to make these swirl feathers.  I did a big swirl in the middle of each background area and then feathered around it.  In the background diamonds I did some continuous curve quilting.  Then I added a binding by machine.



Project complete!  So pretty.  I can't wait to use it now!


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy
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Friday, March 26, 2021

Salt and Sand Blog Hop

 Welcome!  I'm excited to be part of Carol from Just Let Me Quilt's Salt and Sand Blog Hop!  Ever since I saw Moana I have wanted to make a manta ray tattoo quilt.  I decided this was the perfect occasion.  I search for a relatively simple one I could easily applique.


I then dug through my Island Batik fabric scraps to decide which fabrics to use.  This blue background is actually supposed to be Van Gogh's sky, but it works great for water too (as long as you ignore the crescent moons).  I was thinking about making my manta ray purple, bur decided on black.  It's more traditional that way.



I then used a blanket stitch to applique all my pieces.  I had fun quilting swirls on all the swirls in the fabric.

Ta da!  All done.


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Be sure to check out all the other fabulous quilters on this hop!

March 22
 
March 23
 
March 24
 
March 25
 
March 26
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Monday, March 22, 2021

Island Batik Ambassador's March Scrapbuster Challenge

This month the Island Batik Ambassadors were challenged to make a scrap quilt.  I have this habit of cutting up all my leftover Island Batik scraps into 1 1/2" squares using my Accuquilt GO BIG cutter.  I often use these in very mixed color projects.  However, upon looking at the squares I had cut at the beginning of this project I discovered I had an abnormally large amount of yellow squares.  I decided I wanted to make a quilt using yellow and red with a gray background.  I have always loved yellow and red color combinations.   




When I did the math on this project I discovered I needed just over 1,000 yellow squares.  Here they are all cut!


First block all laid out!  I had been wanting to make a quilt using the churn dash block for a while.  I decided to make it up of all squares, but keep the traditional triangle corners.


This is how I laid out my yellow squares in pairs.  I love Alex Anderson's Quilters Select rulers. When you use the back side with the grippiness to lay out pieces they stay still for transport!


With all these small pieces I knew I needed to pin, pin, pin....and then sew with my favorite Aurifil thread and Schmetz Microtex needles.


This quilt has eight different types of blocks in it.  The red fabric provides a nice visual pop.


Now it was time to quilt!  Oh did I have fun.  In the outer triangles I made a series of large curls and then added feathers to them in some places.  I used my favorite Hobbs batting of course.  This time I used their 100% cotton.


In the red fabric I made large sweeping feathers since I knew it would be hard to see any intricate quilting.  It's also a good way to go into all those points.


In the yellow spaces I did simple continuous curve all in the same yellow thread.  This helped to tie together all the different yellow fabrics.  In the center gray "x" I did a large swirl and the rest of the gray got a small meander.




Ta da!  All done.  I love how regal this quilt feels to me.  Such fun!


I love scrap quilts....now to figure out the next one!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy





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Friday, March 19, 2021

Repeated Block Color Play Part 1

I decided I wanted to make a bunch of the same blocks and then play with them to make a modern design.  Since I could cut this particular block with my Accuquilt I decided it was a good one to choose.  I picked out a variety of fabrics in reds and aquas from my Island Batik Ambassador stash.  


Then I made a TON of blocks.

I started by putting all the small triangles going in the same direction.


Then it was time to PLAY! Watch the progression as I play with the pieces.  

I started turning the triangles in different directions to see what happened.


I decided to make a big red ribbon to be the focal point of the quilt.


Then I started adding aquas.


Next up was a red accent line.


I made the accent line thicker to make it more pronounced.  Then I started adding aqua fabrics trying to play with gradating the color.


Final placements.


Starting to sew all the pieces together.  It's a process to make sure that none of them got moved around incorrectly.  I sew one set of five wide at a time and then put them back on the design wall.


All sewn together!  Stay tuned for the quilting....


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy


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Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Show Your Stripes Blog Hop

I was trying to decide what I wanted to do for Carla of Creatin' in the Stick's Show Your Stripes Blog Hop.  I was looking through my batiks and I didn't have something that definitely screamed stripes.  But I did have a curvy stripe print (you see it in the big flower) that I thought would be fun.  So I designed a tall skinny flower.  I wanted to hang it in a narrow spot in my hallway.  I of course went digging in my Island Batik stash.



I also decided it would be fun to put some stripes on the vase and use stripes as a quilting pattern.  If you look closely you can see how the block is separated up into sections of different background fillers.

Take a close look at the fun curvy stripes!

Stripes can be such fun. 

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Check out all the other amazing quilters on the hop!

Monday, February 22nd


Tuesday, February 23rd


Wednesday, February 24th


Thursday, February 25th

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Thursday, February 18, 2021

Island Batik Ambassador's Create for a Cause Blog Hop

This month's Island Batik Ambassador Challenge is to use their fabulous new collections to create quilts for a cause.  I have been a member of Minnesota Quilters since I was in high school.  As soon as I saw this challenge I knew that I wanted to do this year's president's challenge for my charity.  Each year for our annual show (virtual this year) the president picks an organization to donate quilts to.  For this year's challenge Tummy Time quilts for the Nurse-Family Partnership was chosen.  Their mission is to transform the lives of vulnerable babies, mothers, and families.



For this month's challenge I received the Vincent's Garden collection which is a signature collection by Kathy Engle for Karen Overton of The Quilt Rambler.  It's a gorgeous collection that reminds me a ton of Vincent Van Gogh and his gorgeous artwork.  


These fabrics are just so gorgeous.


I decided to make two tummy time quilts since they are small and I wanted to show all the gorgeous fabrics.  I chose to make a bargello quilt and started by cutting 3 1/2" strips of the fabrics on my Accuquilt Go BIG.  I find the easiest way to make these is to sew the fabric strips into a strip set and then to sew them into a tube.  Then I cut strips off the tube.  Next, I separated the tube pieces into strips by undoing the seams where I needed as I designed the patterns.  I laid them out row by row to design the quilt.    

I decided to offset the strips so I didn't have to pin all the intersections.  It saves so much time!

Here are the two quilts I created for this wonderful organization!  I know they're not quilted yet.  I got sick last weekend (thankfully it wasn't Coronavirus, but I just didn't have any energy at all)...which resulted in them not quite being done.  Hopefully this weekend!  The of course were sewn with my favorite Aurifil thread and Schmetz Needles.  I look forward to layering them with Hobbs Cotton Batting too.



 


ISLAND BATIK GIVE AWAY - Two lucky people have a chance to win a 2.5″ Strip pack of the new Island Batik collections that will be featured this week: Starry Night, designed by Kathy Engle, or Painted Blossoms, designed for Kate Colleran of Seams Like a Dream Quilt Designs by Kathy Engle. Head over to the Island Batik website to enter their giveaway.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Be sure to check out all the other wonderful new collections and projects!

February 1:

February 2:

February 3:

February 4:

February 5:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 1 and Giveaway

February 8:

February 9:

February 10:

February 11:

February 12:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 2 and Giveaway

February 15:

February 16:

February 17:

February 18:

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