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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