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

Island Batik Ambassador's All Puffed Up Blog Hop and Giveaway!

It's my turn for the Island Batik Ambassador's All Puffed Up Blog Hop.  I must admit that when I read about the challenge I wasn't too excited as puffy quilts have never appealed to me.  However, I found a tutorial that showed how to make a stripy puffy quilt which seemed easy enough to do.

I started off by cutting 3 1/2" strips from each fabric in the gorgeous Exuberance collection by Teb Tucker's Studio 180 Design using my Accuquilt GO BIG! fabric cutter.  The fabrics in this collection are just gorgeous.  I love all the deep pinks and blues. 

I then sewed all the strips together to create a long piece of fabric for the top.  Next I taped the backing fabric to my kitchen table.  Then I layered the top right on it and pinned it together with regular fabric pins.

Next I stitched in the ditch down each seam making sure to do a nice locking stitch at the beginning and the end using my favorite Aurifil 50 weight thread.

Now it was time to stuff it with polyester stuffing!  Since this was long and puffy I needed help to get the stuffing all the way down the tube.  I ended up using a 1/2" wooden dowel rod I found in my parent's basement.  It worked well but it still took me 10-15 minutes to stuff each tube.  And there were 21.  

After many hours of stuffing I was finally finished.  With the rigidity of the end product (note to self, don't stuff it so full.  OOPS.), I finally decided on a simple zigzag stitch to finish the edge because other than a TON of hand sewing it was the only way.  Fortunately my Schmetz Microtex Needles handled the job without any problems.  I then took it out to our bazillion inches of snow in our yard for it's photo shoot.  These fabrics are so yummy.

My husband is excited to use this when he goes winter camping as a sleeping mat so I suppose it is only appropriate to have a picture of it in the snow.

I am giving away a scrap bag of Island Batik fabrics!  It has some from the Exuberance collection and lots of others too.  For a chance to win leave a comment about your favorite color combination to use in quilts.  A winner will be picked on February 28th at noon.

Island Batik is giving away two gorgeous fat quarter stacks this week!  Be sure to click on the Rafflecopter link below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

100 Days of Scrappy Patchwork Day 12

Here is block 12 of my 100 days of Scrappy Patchwork!  It was fun to play with a different corner design using my Island Batik fabrics I cut with my Accuquilt 5" Qube.

I started by picking a fun lime print and orange print as a focal point to start.

I added in a darker lime to complement the first fabric and a red too.

I wanted to add in one more color so I decided on purple.

I'm really happy with this one.  It reminds me of spring.  With 2 feet of snow on the ground here in Minnesota I am ready!

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

100 Days of Scrappy Patchwork Day 11

Block 11 of  my 100 Days of Scrappy Patchwork features a bold blue corner!  I love playing with all my Island Batik scraps I cut with my Accuquilt 5" Qube.

I started with an Ohio Star layout and then added the bold blue in the corners.  Now what?

I repeated the dark in the center and added an orange accent.

Lime green?  Nope.  A little too overwhelming.

I decided on the same teal to add to the interior star shape.

Done!

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

100 Days of Scrappy Patchwork Day 10

On this bock I wanted to play with putting that small pink triangle in the very corners and having a simple outside shape.  It's such fun to play with my Island Batik scraps that I cut on with my Accuquilt 5" Qube.

I like how this block has long skinny triangles and regular half square triangles.

What if I turned the insides so the pink triangles connect?  Nah.   Too much yellow in the center!

All sewn.

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

100 Days of Scrappy Patchwork Day 9

This block has a standout navy blue star.  It also features a lot of squares in the corners.  There's nothing like the accuracy of my Accuquilt GO! 5" Qubes or the beauty of my Island Batik scraps!

Here is where I started.  I knew I wanted those particular fabrics in the corners.  I also knew I wanted to use the big yellow triangles.  I tried dark blue or light lavender pieces to go with the big yellow triangles and decided the dark blue ones worked better because the lavender was just too light.  The green on the bottom didn't work either because it just wasn't enough contrast from the other pieces.

 Liking this.  Now what to do with the center?

At one point I did consider flipping the blue points outwards.  I decided I wanted to see the star more and switched it back.  I also like this center as I think it brings out the darker part of the yellow triangles.

You can see below that I added a little darker green micro triangles to the center.  I like how they help your eye flow out to the lighter green squares.

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy