Island Batik Ambassador's Tool Craze Blog Hop

This month the Island Batik Ambassadors are debuting the new collections!  I got to play with the new Wild Blooms Collection.  It's a spring paradise of floral inspired fabrics that are just gorgeous,

As a part of the blog hop we were each give a Deb Tucker's Studio 180 ruler to use. 

The tool I received was the Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star.  There are also technique sheets to go with these tools.  I choose to do a banded Lemoyne star which means that it has a narrow border around the edge of the star.  The instructions on the technique sheet and the Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star tool instructions were quite clear.  It was easy to use and I was successful right away.  

The first step was to pick out fabric combinations for my stars and bands.  I decided to use some of the multicolored fabrics as the bands to add sparkle.  I then used more "solid" looking batiks for the stars.  The funny part is that after I took this picture and cut my strips to make the stars with I totally changed up what I was putting together!  It's amazing how different things can look when you have big pieces verses small strips.

Here are my final four star blocks.

I think the band on this block is probably my favorite fabric in the collection.  I have a big soft spot for orange.

I had some softer fabrics left that I did not use in the stars that I decided would make a great scrappy square border which I quickly cut with my Accuquilt GO.  Once it was all sewn together with my favorite Aurifil thread and Schmetz Microtex needles I layered my quilt with my favorite Hobbs 80/20 Cotton/Poly blend batting.

My final quilt is a nice baby quilt that will soon be on it's way to a new baby.  I hope you love the fabrics and Lemoyne stars as much as I do!

Some of the shops getting this gorgeous fabric are:

Quilter's Quarters, Cottonwood AZ

Fabric Frenzy, Wimberly TX

Hancock's of Paducah, Paducah KY

Kilauea Kreations, Volcano HI

Missouri Star Quilt Company, Hamilton MO

My Very Own Quilt Shop, Park Rapids MN

Red Pine Quilt Shop, Detroit Lakes MN

Seams Sew Perfect, Madison ME

Sew with Me, Lake Elmo MN

Island Batik has a giveaway!  Click on the link below to enter.  The collections are so GORGEOUS.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Island Batik Ambassador's Crazy Quilts Challenge

When I first read that the Island Batik Ambassadors were to make a crazy quilt using Aurifil Thread for this month's challenge I was not enthused.  I appreciate crazy quilts as they are tremendous pieces of art, however, they are a little over the top for me personally.  So...what to do?

I knew I needed to think outside the box on this one so I asked myself this question: can you make a crazy quilt modern?  I think I have satisfied that one with a resounding yes and I LOVE how it turned out!

I decided that I wanted to paper piece a modern looking circle.  I designed my pattern in Electric Quilt 8 and picked a yellow Stashbuilder Roll to pick my fabrics from.  These are 5" strips and perfect for my purpose.

This is my final selection of yummy yellows.

The paper piecing commences!

Rings complete.  Now it was time to add the fancy thread work that is typical of a crazy quilt.  Since I had yet to turn the edges of this shape under I thought it would be the perfect way to hide all the thread ends I was about to create.

I received the Stinking Corpse Lily color builder collection from Aurifil threads.  It has some gorgeous coral colors to it.  One is solid and the other two are variegated which is always fun to see all stitched out with fancy stitches from my machine.

Don't they play beautifully with the yellows?  They are going to shine against them.

Below you can see that I removed the thread from my machine.  The top and the bottom.  I then stitched around the inside and outside edges of my circle. It's like perforating the fabric and it makes turning it so much easier.

I have had my Bernina 570QE for 5 years and I'm not sure I've ever done a decorative stitch with it.  It was fun to explore the menus and try different things.  I used my favorite size 80 Schmetz Microtex needles and they worked like a charm even through all the layers.

Here is the whole circle ready to be turned with glue.

The edges are all turned under and it's time to put it on some fabric!

To hide the thin edges of my circles I decided to add a bright pink circle of a gorgeous Island Batik foundations fabric.  I love the way it brings out the color of the Aurifil Thread.  This circle of course I cut on my Accuquilt GO Big electric as it made it so much easier!  To stitch them to the background which is a Dark Grey solid Island Batik fabric I used Aurifil's invisible thread.  It's fantastic.

For the quilting I wanted to do something modern and jus the other day I was watching a Christina Cameli drawing video on Instagram where she explained how to do this pattern.  PERFECT.  I love how it adds more circles!  I of course layered it with my favorite Hobbs 80/20 poly/cotton batting.  

Project complete!  Crazy quilt?  Check.  Modern?  Check.  Do I love it?  YES!  A win-win for sure.  

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Island Batik Ambassador's It's All Up To You Challenge

This month the Island Batik Ambassadors got to choose what they wanted to make.  I fell in love with Island Batik's Exuberance collection as soon as I saw it.  All the deep pinks and blues with a pop of orange made me smile.  It's an unusual color collection that I haven't worked with a lot which made it a lot of fun for me.  I decided I wanted to play with a two block quilt where they come together to make interesting elements.  Do you see the octagons make with the dark pinks and purples?  Such  a fun secondary pattern.  

The Exuberance collection was designed by Deb Tucker's Studio 180 Design.  Which one is your favorite?  My favorite is the pink and orange fabric second from the top on the right side.

For this quilt I knew I wanted to use the Accuquilt North Carolina Star as one of the blocks.  It has a lot of pieces and makes it fun to play with a bunch of different fabrics.  Getting those pink points to match up at the edges was a real challenge, but that's why I LOVE pins so much.  Ask my quilty friends...I am an obsessive over pinner.

After my puff quilt last month I had about 14" of each fabric to work with.  You can see that I figured out how to use 9 of them in each North Carolina Star block.  However, I didn't have enough of some of them so I used two in the same space which actually worked out well as it provides a little extra interest.

See what I mean about pins?  I really like Clover's ultra fine pins for going through lots of layers of batik.  I also really like Schmetz Microtex Needles  and Aurifil thread for going through all the layers!

Quilting this quilt was a lot of fun and of course I used my favorite Hobbs 80/20 Cotton/Poly batting.  I didn't want to have to make a ton of thread changes so it is mostly quilted in turquoise, pink, gray and cream.  I can never have enough feathers so they are in the other border and you can see the paisleys in the gray of the star block.

Here you can see the alternate block.  It has some fun chains and a star in the middle.  I wanted the cream to have an interesting texture so I used wavy matchsticks on all of these blocks.

Look carefully at the pink in the North Carolina Star.  I did a feathers all around the octagon wreath.

Quilt Complete!

Look closely.  The inner blocks have a slightly lighter blue chain than the outer edge.  The inner stars also have pink corners where as along the edge there is a pink and orange fabric.  Fun little details that happen out of necessity when you have only a certain amount of fabric to use.

If you would like to purchase these fabrics, you can find them at:

 Amy's Quilt Room, PA

Block Party Studios, IA
Creekside Quilts, OR
Hancocks of Paducah, KY
Tucker University, OH
Castle Sewing Centre-CANADA BC
Mulqueen Sewing & Fabric Centers, AZ

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

100 Days of Scrappy Patchwork Day 14

I am busy cutting yet more Island Batik scraps into 5" Accuquilt Qube pieces to keep making these blocks, but I keep forgetting to post the ones I've already made!  

I started this one with the green skinny triangles and it grew from there.

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

100 Days of Scrappy Patchwork Day 13

It's a snowy day here and a great day to keep working on my Scrappy Patchwork blocks made with my Island Batik scraps and cut with my 5" Accuquilt Qube.  It's been a while since I posted because I've been busy with recovering from Covid and some secret sewing projects.

I decided to start playing with radial symmetry.  I think this is my favorite block yet.  I keep thinking about what it would look like as a whole quilt top.  Hmm.  Thoughts for later.

I started with the bright orange/cheddar scraps.

Then I added in a dark gray because that's what color is on those orange scraps.

I then added a darker orange center and a dark purple for a pop.

Next came lighter purple outer triangles.

And then a second set of outer triangles.

Block complete!

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy