Friday, January 29, 2021

Class with Cindy Lohbeck and Kyra Reps

January has been quilt class online month for me!  I took two classes this month.  The first was from Julia Quiltoff who taught me the doodle quilting I used on this project.  The second was from Cindy Lohbeck and Kyra Reps who taught me how to do dotting on fabric.  They were WAY too much fun and I highly recommend Zoom classes!








I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Island Batik 2021 Ambassador's Unboxing!

It's always exciting when my boxes from Island Batik come in the mail!  Watch the video to check out what was in my box or scroll through my post. 

Hobbs Batting has a partnership with Island Batik and sent us FOUR queen size batts this year!  WOW.  


Cotton Batting which is one of my favorites and I love to use it in bed and throw quilts.  This one is natural, so it is light tan in color.


Black batting which is 80 percent cotton and 20 percent poly.  This is a favorite of mine in all colors, but the black is especially nice for working with dark colored or black backgrounds.  I most recently used it in my December 2020 project and it's awesome to have black batting in a quilt with a black background.


Another great cotton batting.


Polydown batting is something I haven't used in a long time as I usually prefer cotton in my quilts, but I am excited to try it out again.


Accuquilt sent me the Morning Star die.  I can't wait to try all the possibilities with this one!  Can you see it with a gradation of fabrics?!


Buttons!  So fun to wear Island Batik swag!


Aurifil threads sent 7 spools of their amazing cotton thread.  Four on the orange cones are 50 weight cotton and the 3 on the green cones are 40 weight cotton which is a little thicker.  I like to use 40 weight for quilting and 50 weight for piecing.  I'm really excited about the green variegated thread.  it's going to be such fun to play with.


Schmetz Needles sent us three packages of their Chrome Microtex Professional Needles.  These are my absolute favorite needles.  They leave tiny holes and I use them for just about everything.


Now it's time for the FABRIC.  Island Batik fabric is my favorite fabric.  I use it constantly.  The thread quality and density are fantastic.  

These fabrics are from the foundations collection.  Foundations are basic fabrics that are available at all time.  They include luscious Island Batik solids, blenders, and basic batik colors.  


This is a 10" stack of Melody by Claudia Pfeil for Island Batik.  It's just GORGEOUS.  It might be my favorite collection I've ever received.  It definitely will have to be something special, but I am not sure what quite yet.  I received two yard cuts of the pink and green foundations fabrics to coordinate with the collection.


This 2 1/2" strip collection is called Farm Fresh.  I love the warm colors.  It too came with two different 2-yard cuts of foundations fabrics to coordinate.  


We also received 4 yards each of light gray, black, and white Island Batik solids.  I couldn't wait to cut into the gray.  You'll have to stay tuned for what I've started...


I also received 6 yards of this neutral called "Moo Milk."  Isn't that just the best name?  I love it and it's gorgeous.


These are called Stashbuster rolls.  They are 5" strips meant to be used in scrappy quilts.  One collection I received was grays and the other tans.  They are going to make excellent scrappy backgrounds!


This collection is called Vincent's Garden for the Quilt Rambler and will be featured in my February project.


I also received 2 yards of gorgeous Island Batik rayon!


I also got another surprise collection for use in May, but you will have to wait until then to see it!

It's always like Christmas when my Island Batik box comes in the mail!  I hope you enjoyed the preview.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

For a list of all the Island Batik Ambassadors and their blogs check out the right side of my blog where you will find links to all their amazing blogs!

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Hearts on Fire Blog Hop

I was excited to play with hearts!  It reminds me of elementary school when we got to decorate bags or boxes for Valentines day.  I usually make heart animals with my students at this time of year.  I googled heart animals and came across a heart dragonfly.  It was so cute I knew that's what I wanted to make.  

I took a 10 inch square of Island Batik in royal blue and found some yellow and orange scraps.  I applied Steam-a-Seam 2 light to the back of the scraps and cut out a bunch of hearts.  



It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to position the dragonflies nicely.  I finally decided to make them next to each other.

I then stitched around the edges of the applique with invisible thread because the thought of changing colors too often was daunting. 



For the quilting I decided on a simple echo pattern to emphasize the dragonflies.  I an't wait to show it to my first graders.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Monday, January 18, 2021

Island Batik Ambassador's Placemat Challenge

This month's Island Batik Challenge was to make placemats.  We just received our first box of fabric and supplies for 2021.  Thank you so much to all the sponsors: Island Batik, Schmetz Needles, Accuquilt, Hobbs Batting, and Aurifil.



I was thinking about placemats and how they are traditionally rectangular.  I decided I wanted to make them a different shape and try to make then a little more modern.  I wanted a leaf shaped design.

I started with some gorgeous Island Batik foundations fabric (fabric available all the time) called Baja which is gorgeous blues and greens.  I then layered it with my favorite Hobbs 80/20 cotton/poly batting and started quilting away.  

I had just taken an online class from Julia Quiltoff on Doodle quilting and was practicing my skills.



I love the overall look of the piece once it was quilted.  It was hard to cut into, but I really did want a leaf shape.


I decided that I wanted to add some feather appliques onto the placemats once they were quilted so I pulled out my Heather Feather Border die and my Accuquilt Go BIG.  I found a beautiful dark navy to cut my feathers out of and cut a piece the size of this die.


But then I had all this scrap that still had fusible on it.  I use Steam-a-Seam 2 Lite and I love to use it up as much as possible.  So...


I strategically placed the larger pieces to get more feathers.


The smaller pieces were put on my circle die to get some circles to add in.


Next, I made the leaf shape and then started playing with the feathers to make a leaf "vein."


Then I cut out the leaf shape.


All done!  They turned out just how I wanted.  I watched a video tutorial on how to put binding around odd angles and it really helped these come out just perfect.  I used a single layer bias binding to help me go around the curves easily.  This was stitched on with the amazing Schmetz Microtex Chrome Needles.  They work so well!





There are a lot of fun ways to lay these out.  They could go in the middle of the table for a centerpiece or be used as individual placemats.


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy