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

This month the Island Batik Ambassadors were left to their own devices to decide what they wanted to create.  The possibilities were endless.  Sometimes that makes it harder to figure out!  That is until inspiration strikes...

I had a 10" square stack of the Daisy May collection by Kathy Engle that I'd been staring at and I decided this was the perfect opportunity to use it.  I love the oranges and yellows and turquoise and teal.  They are such happy colors.

I also have a new Accuquilt die called Pine Burr.  It's a Block on Board die so all the pieces needed to make it are included on one die.  I decided to simply cut as many of the little triangles as I could from each square and then see how many I had and what I could do with them.

After I knew how many triangles I had I put the block in Electric Quilt and started to play.  I decided to make some of the units have more oranges and yellow and others have more teals and turquoises.  It made the quilt more dynamic and also made it easier to use up all the triangles I had cut.  I also picked out a nice neutral background from my Island Batik stash.  

Now to do all the piecing!  The advantage of using an Accuquilt die is that all the pieces worked PERFECTLY.  I stitched them with 50 weight Aurifil thread and my favorite Schmetz Microtex needles which go through batiks like butter.  However, I did have to press them all open because of the sheer volume of seams.  It took awhile, but I'm very happy with how it turned out.  I then steam the blocks nice and flat with my Oliso iron.  It's steaming powers are amazing.

I decided to do some continuous curve quilting on all the background triangles and the three smaller triangles in the blocks.  The quilt is layered with my favorite Hobbs 80/20 Cotton/Poly batting.

I think the yellow with teal flower fabric below is my favorite one in the collection.  It's so cheerful!

Project complete!  I love how the placement of the fabrics lets me have a dynamic design that lets your eye move around the quilt.  

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy