Island Batik Ambassador's English Paper Piecing Challenge

Island Batik Ambassador's English Paper Piecing Challenge.  I have an EPP project I've been working on with Island Batik fabrics for two years, but it's nowhere close to done.  So what to do?

Then I remembered an EPP kit I bought in Houston a few years ago.  It's called Georgia and is by Courtney Reed.  

This is a fun pattern with lots of interesting shapes.  I went digging in my Island Batik stash and found this fun orange fabric for the big arcs.  Then I picked the rest of the fabrics to coordinate.  Below you can see that to EPP curves you use tape to hold the piece in place while you are sewing.

The pattern recommends sewing the finished pieces to a background around the edge using invisible thread.  I decided to hand sew mine down instead.  I then layered the quilt with some Hobbs fusible batting as I had a scrap piece just the right size!  It was slick because the quilt was so small and because then I didn't have pins in the way when I was marking some lines prior to quilting.

TA DA!  I love how this turned out.  It would be fun to make a quilt with a whole set of them sometime.  

Since the quilt was very symmetrical I had a lot of fun designing the quilting  I started by drawing some registration lines with iron erase marker.  

I started thee quilting by making this big star and then adding matchstick quilting around the outside.

I decided to echo the clamshell shape in outward lines and then filled them with two different patterns.  The echoes were created to add interest and to make sure that you could see the clamshell shape.

I love when the right light comes in to catch beautiful pictures of quilting!

For the background areas I added lots of pebbles.  They do take a little longer to quilt, but they add a totally different texture which I like.

I couldn't resist doing radiating rays inside those little half circles.  I also like how it looks like it extends from the middle.

Project complete!  Sew pretty.  Now where to hang it up?!

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Island Batik Ambassador's Storm at Sea Blog Hop

I have been an Island Batik Ambassador for six years.  This collection, Twilight Glow, is by far my FAVORITE I have ever received.  And that is saying something!  I was so excited to work with this collection I designed a QUEEN sized quilt.  That is totally rare for me.  It's only my second as an ambassador.  There may have been some squealing going on at my house when I unwrapped this collection.

Kathy Engle, the main designer at Island Batik hit it out of the park with this collection!  SO PRETTY.

In the past I made one storm at sea block. One. So many pieces.  So I knew right away that I wanted to use the Accuquilt Storm at Sea Block on Board for this one.  I also used my 6 inch Qube to make the square in a square blocks for the corner stones of the design in order to simplify it a bit.  I also used my favorite Aurifil threads for piecing and Schmetz Microtex Needles in my machine.  They make quick work of going through batik fabric.

When playing with 20 different fabrics and fitting all of them into the quilt it's important to keep track of what you're doing.  I used the plate method where I laid out each block and sewed 3-4 at a time so I didn't mess up the pieces that needed to be together.  

This is the corner of the border.  I didn't have enough of either the yellow or cheddar prints to make the whole borer from one fabric.  So I decided to alternate star colors.  I think this decision actually adds to the end result.  Here are the pieces all laid out ready to sew.

And now here they are all sewn together and ready to be ironed.  For every single seam in this quilt I presseed the seams open.  There were just so many fabrics coming together at certain points it seamed easiest.  It does take a long time, but the end result was worth it.

Now it was time for the quilt to be quilted.  It's almost 90 inches square.  As much as I wanted to quilt it myself with being a full time first grade teacher I knew I needed some help.  So I admitted it would be challenging for me to get done and asked my mom if she would quilt it on her long arm.  Yes, I paid her.  And she did a fabulous job!  We put one layer of Hobbs 80/20 cotton/poly blend inside the quilt and it shows all the quilting fantastically.  All I said was I wanted some fun design in the large cream areas and feathers.  Check out all her beautiful work!

I love the border on this quilt.  Such fun.  I also loved playing with the fabrics in the center and making them radiate out.  I purposely used the darkest blue in the center and then worked my way lighter as I went outwards.

I can't wait to put this one on my bed!

Island Batik is giving away two gorgeous new precuts!  Sail Away and Twilight Glow.  Enter with the rafflecopter link: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Also, be sure to check out all the other amazing quilts on the Storm at Sea blog hop!  I've been truly impressed with all the different takes on this pattern that my fellow ambassadors have created!

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Gail Sheppard, Quilting Gail

Preeti Harris, Sew Preeti Quilts

Pamela Boatright, Pamela Quilts

Jane Hauprich, Stitch by Stitch Custom Quilting

Denise Looney, For the Love of Geese

Megan Best, Bestquilter

Gail Renna, Quilt Haven Threads

Claudia Porter, Create with Claudia

Mania Hatzioannidi, Mania for Quilts

Jennifer Fulton, Inquiring Quilter

Joanne Hart, Unicorn Harts

Connie Kauffman, Kauffman Designs

Jennifer Eubank, Archipelago Quilting

Jennifer Thomas, Curlicue Creations

Janet Yamamoto, Whispers of Yore

Emily Leachman, The Darling Dogwood

Maryellen McAuliffe, Mary Mack Made Mine

Elizabeth DeCroos, Epida Studio

Andi Stanfield, True Blue Quilts

Brianna Roberts, Sew Cute and Quirky

Michelle Roberts, Creative Blonde

Sally Manke, Sally Manke Fiber Artist

Leah Malasky, Quilted Delights

Suzy Webster, Websterquilt

Island Batik Ambassadors Endangered Species with Aurifil

This month's Island Batik Ambassador's Challenge was to make a quilt inspired by Aurifil's 2021 Color Builder's Endangered Species Collections.  I received some gorgeous 40 weight yellow threads inspired by the African wild dog. 

I had heard of the African wild dog before, but had not really examined what they looked like closely.  I adore their ears!  So fun.  But every time I started drawing the they looked like mickey mouse ears.  What to do?

I searched up a tutorial on how to draw an African wild dog and drew my own version.  I decided to place him in front of a bright yellow sun made from the yellow solid from Island Batik.  I also found this great dot print to make the dog itself with.

For my three Aurifil 40 weight threads I decided to quilt the yellow sun in thirds to show the difference in the thread colors.  Would it work?  I had no idea.  I do know that quilting fabrics in different threads can affect the way they look  and that is what I was hoping for.

I also grabbed a 50 weight brown to stitch down the African wild dog.

Now look at the finished product which of course has Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 batting inside.  Can you see the difference in the three threads?  Not too much.  Not what I wanted to achieve.  So, what to do?  Add more of course!  The sun need some coronal ejections after all...now you can see the three yellow threads better.

I used the lightest thread right around the edge and the darker two for the outward lines.

My son also insisted that I needed to add some shading lines on the African wild dog so he was more well defined.  I used a Pigma pen to do this and he was totally right.  He looks much more three dimensional.  

It was so fun to work with amazing Aurifil thread.  Especially the 40 weight which I haven't used that often.  I put used my favorite Schmetz Microtex needles and it worked quite well even with all the dense stitching.

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

 

Be sure to check out all the other Island Batik Ambassador's Endangered Species with Aurifil Projects!

Megan Best – Bestquilter
Pamela Boatright – PamelaQuilts
Elizabeth DeCroos – Epida Studio
Jennifer Eubank – Archipelago Quilting
Jennifer Fulton – The Inquiring Quilter
Preeti Harris – Sew Preeti Quilts
Joanne Hart – Unicornharts
Mania Hatziioannidi – Mania for Quilts
Jane Hauprich – Stitch by Stitch Custom Quilting
Connie Kauffman – Kaufmann Designs
Emily Leachman – The Darling Dogwood
Denise Looney – For the Love of Geese
Leah Malasky – Quilted Delights
Sally Manke – Sally Manke Fiber Artist
Maryellen McAuliffe – Mary Mack Made Mine
Claudia Porter – Create with Claudia
Gail Renna – Quilt Haven Threads
Brianna Roberts – Sew Cute and Quirky
Michelle Roberts – Creative Blonde
Gail Sheppard – Quilting Gail
Jennifer Thomas – Curlicue Creations
Suzy Webster – Websterquilt
Janet Yamamoto – Whispers of Yore

Ghostly Ghouls Blog Hop

I love the colors of Halloween.  When Carol of Just Let me Quilt announced the Ghostly Ghouls Blog Hop I knew I wanted to participate.  And of course I had to make a pumpkin...

 I started by digging in my scrap bin for oranges.  I found some lights and some darks and cut 2 1/2" half triangles on my Accuquilt cutter.  Then I sewed them together as shown below.

Next I traced a pumpkin outline onto Steam a Seam 2 fusible webbing and stuck it to the back.  then I cut out the outline edge of the pumpkin.

After that I added some black shapes for the face and quilted it to look like a pumpkin.  I didn't want to use more black for the binding and I already had some white binding made so I went with it.  I like that it contrasts.

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Be sure to check out the other amazing bloggers on the hop!

OCTOBER 18
 
Creatin' in the Sticks
Inflorescence
Samelia's Mum
Songbird Designs
Ink Torrents
 
OCTOBER 19

Moosestash Quilting
Just Sew Quilter
Quilted Delights
Websterquilt
Patchouli Moon Studio
 
OCTOBER 20
 
Scrapdash
Homespun Hannah's Blog
Elizabeth Coughlin Designs
Karrin’s Crazy World
 
OCTOBER 21
 
Kathy's Kwilts and More
For The Love Of Geese
Quilt Schmilt
Words & Stitches
Home Sewn By Us
 
OCTOBER 22
 
Just Let Me Quilt
Quilt Fabrication
Selina Quilts
Ms P Designs USA