Island Batik Ambassador's Creative Borders and Bindings Challenge #2

This month I was inspired by two different kinds of binding.  For my second project I made a snowflake that was a pattern in the second volume of Quilter's 100 Blocks.  I used a charm pack plus 2 half yard cuts of the Winter Moon Island Batiks from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  I couldn't resist the purple and blue holiday fun!

I'd been wanting to try a binding that varied in width.  I had a theory about how to accomplish it and it worked!

Here's my top before layering.  This was all paper pieced.

I fussy cut a deer head from one of the fabrics to put in the center where the 6 points didn't match up very well.  I love to fussy cut.

Ooooh....all the fun Aurifil choices!

I carefully stitched around the antlers and head to outline the deer.

I made a bubble stack in this star point.

And the final quilt!  It was so much fun to make.  I was trying to come up with a fun quilting pattern for the background, but instead decided to stipple it because stippling looks kind of wintery.

And the back.

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Island Batik Ambassador's Creative Borders and Binding Challenge

I adore being an Island Batik Ambassador.  Their fabrics are luscious and I get to stretch creatively to meet the monthly challenges.  This month is no exception.  When I realized it was creative borders and bindings my brain went right over the borders and straight to the binding.  I have been staring at many new show quilts from big name quilters that have AMAZING edge finishes.  To keep up with the best of the best on my show quilts I wanted to try it.  Now I have a reason to do something small and experiment!

I started by making this small 20" quilt with the new Blue Moon collection from Island Batik.  The colors and fabrics are so much fun!  I love the blue double dotty print and the dark purple birch tress that I turned into a "stripe" in the large points.  I then added a border of purple triangles and was set to quilt. This quilt has Hobbs Tuscany Polyester batting in it to give it loft and because it's white and the background fabric is white.  A good match.  

Aren't the patterns of the batiks great?  I love the lighter purple which looks like wood grain too.  The background fabric is this same print in white.  I started by quilting the center circle in bubbles.

It's easier to see from the back...

I did a plant like idea in the points and repeated it triangles.  I also did a bubble stack on the dark purple birch fabric to enhance the stripy quality of it. (see above photo)

I then quilted feathers coming out of each point to fill the space and the did some straight line quilting around the edge.  I like to do this so that when I add the binding the edge of the quilt is firm and doesn't stretch.

The back of the final quilt.  I adore feathers.

Now to attach the clam shells in the binding.  But how?  I realized finally that the answer was in the quilt as you go challenge.  I tried it and it worked like a charm.  Putting the tails together at the corners was a bit of a challenge, but I figured it out.

 And it will get better....

Aren't the cute?  Since I started with fat quarters I didn't have enough fabric to do them all the same, but necessity is the mother of invention so I made them a variety of fabrics and I love it!

I can't wait to play with this idea more....thoughts are percolating!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy