Cloud 9 New Block Blog Hop

I am excited that as part of the New Bloggers Blog Hop we were asked to create a 12 inch block out of Cloud 9 organic solids!

Cloud9 is generously sponsoring a New Block Blog Hop featuring their Organic Cirrus Solids. The blog hop hosts, Yvonne @Quilting Jetgirl, Cheryl @Meadow Mist Designs, and Stephanie @Late Night Quilter, have curated the “Berry Harvest” bundle, and Cloud9 is supplying each participant with a fat quarter bundle. Blocks made for the hop will be collected and made into quilts for donation.

As a part of the hop I received a fat quarter bundle of these gorgeous colors!

I decided I wanted to include all the fabrics in my block.  My final block is shown below.

 Here are the directions for making this block:

Cutting Instructions:

Shadow - cut 4 rectangles 2 1/2 by 6 inches

                cut 2 squares 6 1/2 by 6 1/2 inches

Iris - cut 8 squares 1 1/2 by 1 1/2 inches

Lilac - cut 4 squares 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches

Amazon - cut 4 squares 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches

Sky - cut 2 squares 6 1/2 by 6 1/2 inches

          cut 1 square 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches

Piecing Instructions:

1.  Draw a diagonal line from corner to corner on ALL the squares EXCEPT the 6 1/2 by 6 1/2 sky squares.  I used a Clover White Marking Pen for this because it irons off!

On the Shadow squares, draw additional lines 1/4 inch on either side of the center line you drew as shown below.  The inner line will be the CUTTING line and the outer two lines will be the SEWING lines.

Pin together a light blue 6 1/2 by 6 1/2 sky square with a shadow square on top.  Stitch on the outer two lines.  Then cut the square in half along the center line.

Now iron the squares open towards the dark gray.  Then trim the squares to 5 1/2 inches.  I purposely made these squares large so I could cut them down to size later.

Take a 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch lilac square and lay it in the corner on top of the sky square as shown below.

Sew down the marked line on the lilac square.   Then trim off the extra fabric leaving 1/4 inch next to the sewing line as shown below.

Press towards the lilac creating the block below.

Put the Amazon 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 square in the corner on top of the lilac.  Sew down the diagonal line marked on the Amazon square.

Trim away the extra fabric leaving 1/4 inch next to the sewing line as shown below.

Press towards the Amazon.  This finishes the four corner units of the block.

Get your four Shadow rectangles and Iris squares.  Lay one Iris square on the corner of each rectangle and sew down the marked line as shown below.

Here is where I differ from a lot of people.  When I'm making triangles in the corners this way I like to leave the gray fabric behind the triangle so I know that the triangle is square in relation to the rectangle.  Here is how I cut:

Then I iron the triangles over.

Next, lay a second Iris square on the adjacent corner and sew down the marked line creating a piece that looks like this:

Again, I only trimmed off one layer and then pressed the triangle over.

Now we are going to assemble the center part of the block.

Sew the pieces above as shown.  Press towards the pink triangles as shown below.

Now we need to assemble the outer units.  Here is what we have so far.

Sew two of the rectangle units to the square units as shown.

Press towards the gray rectangle.

Now add the other square unit.

Press towards rectangle.

Now carefully pin the center units and one of the outer units together.  Carefully butt up the center seams.

Press towards the center unit.

Repeat with the other side.

Almost done!

Now trim away any extra fabric from the long gray rectangles (they were oversized) and you're done.

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial!  Be sure to check out Cloud9 Cirrus solids!  They are so soft.

And check out all the other amazing blocks and blogs on the hop!

Monday, September 12th

Host: Yvonne @Quilting Jetgirl

Abigail @Cut & Alter

Janice @Color, Creating, and Quilting!

Lorinda @Laurel, Poppy, and Pine

Melva @Melva Loves Scraps

Renee @Quilts of a Feather

Kathryn @Upitis Quilts

Kim @Leland Ave Studios

Amanda @this mom quilts

Holly @Lighthouse Lane Designs

Irene @Patchwork and Pastry

Jennifer @Dizzy Quilter

Karen @Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats

Anne @Said With Love

Suzy @Adventurous Applique and Quilting

Sharla @Thistle Thicket Studio

Kathleen @Smiles From Kate

Amanda @Gypsy Moon Quilt Co.

Sarah @Sarah Goer Quilts

Chelsea @Patch the Giraffe

Jinger @Trials of a Newbie Quilter

Anja @Anja Quilts

Daisy @Ants to Sugar

Tuesday, September 13th

Host: Cheryl @Meadow Mist Designs

Miranda @I Have Purple Hair

Jennifer @The Inquiring Quilter

Sarah @123 Quilt

Leanne @Devoted Quilter

Jen @Patterns By Jen

Jennifer @RV Quilting

Amanda @Quiltologie

Sharon @Yellow Cat Quilt Designs

Jen @A Dream and A Stitch

Jen @Faith and Fabric

Carole @Carole Lyles Shaw

Stephanie @Quilt’n Party

Susan @Sevenoaks Street Quilts

Katrin @Now What Puppilalla

Amista @Hilltop Custom Designs

Nicole @Handwrought Quilts

Marla @Penny Lane Quilts

Silvia @A Stranger View

Sarah @Smiles Too Loudly

Carrie @the zen quilter

Mary @Quilting is in My Blood

Wednesday, September 14th

Host: Stephanie @Late Night Quilter

Kathy @Kathys Kwilts and More

Paige @Quilted Blooms

Mary @Strip Quilts Pass it On

Allison @Woodberry Way

Seven @The Concerned Craft

Olusola @Alice Samuel’s Quilt Co.

Ann @Brown Paws Quilting

Jodie @Persimmon + Pear

Vicki @Orchid Owl Quilts

Kitty @Night Quilter

Francine @Mochawildchild

Shelley @The Carpenter’s Daughter who Quilts

Jayne @Twiggy and Opal

Geraldine @Living Water Quilter

Velda @GRANNYcanQUILT

Shannon @Shannon Fraser Designs

Lisa @Sunlight In Winter Quilts

Jessica @Quilty Habit

Cassandra @The (not so) Dramatic Life

Deanna @Stitches Quilting

Denise @Craft Traditions

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Black and White Flower #2

I am having so much fun mixing black and white prints in with my favorite batiks!  They add a whole new sense of geometry to my flowers.

Here is flower number two.  I was fortunate in the way I layered pieces to be able to put so many of them on at once.  I really like the busy orange/peach and purple batik I used in this flower.  I've owned the fabric for a long time, but never have been able to use it before.  I think it's really fun and it works in this flower.  I used that fabric to pick the rest of the colors for the flower.

If you look at the back of this flower, you can see that I've been playing around with the size of my blanket stitching.  This particular flower has really tiny stitches on the outside edge of the flower, larger ones on the inside in purple.  And I used huge stitches on the red on the bottom of the flower.  It's fun to vary and play around with.  If I was doing this on multiple blocks I'd have to make sure to write down what size I was using where!

Here's the front of the block all finished.  I debated for a long time about whether or not to use this black with the dots in lines.  I tried out a few other prints, but none of them thrilled me either, so I went with it.  I am happy with the finished product.

And a last glimpse at the back.  I used mostly Glide thread for my blanket stitching, but oddly didn't have black or white so I used a rayon Sulky instead.  The rayon didn't like going through all the layers of fusible on this quilt, but I didn't have any trouble with the Glide.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Free Motion Friday - Lightbulbs

I'm not quite sure where the design inspiration for this came from, but it looks to me like an old fashioned incandescent light bulbs. You can find the written directions right here.

Start by stitching in the ditch around the block as usual.  Then make a triangle shape with one the middle edge curving in to the center of the triangle as shown below.

Curve around your triangle in a feather shape as shown below.

Add another triangle and feather.  You can either start from the same spot or travel by backtracking to where you want to start the next light bulb.

Here you can see that I had a little space in the corner, so I did a partial motif.

Keep repeating the process until having fun as you go!

Below you can see that I have a small space left in the middle of my block.  I decided to add a smaller shape there to fill the space.

Lightbulbs all done!  I really like this design as a play on classic feathers.  You could even put this shape inside of a feather.  Come to think of it, Judi Madsen does make a feather sort of like this.  Maybe that's where the inspiration came from?!

Don't forget to share your pictures of your quilt along on my Machine Applique Adventures Facebook group.

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Island Batik Ambassador's Bountiful Table Toppers

It's time for Island Batik Ambassador's September event! This month we're making table toppers. After making last month's Seaside Summer project I had all these 2 inch hexies that I'd cut on my mom's Accuquilt Go cutter and then glue basted around some 2 inch hexies. They were originally supposed to be rocks around the fish, but they were too big compared to the fish, so I had a stack of about 125 hexies from the gorgeous Spring Zing collection from Island Batiks. What to do? Make a table topper of course!

Below you can see the back of the quilt before it was layered.  Using the Go cutter and glue made the process of making hexagons pretty painless.

The obvious choice was to sew all the hexagons together. However, I really didn't want to hand sew all those seams. So I decided to try zigzagging them together. I thought about using invisible thread, but I have a love/hate relationship with that stuff and I really didn't want to fight with it. So I decided to zigzag them together with black Aurifil 50 weight thread. It worked slick!

Here is the topper all sew together (each section was zigzagged over twice) and layered with scrumptious Hobbs Wool/Cotton batting.  It's nice and flat like cotton, but it gets a little loft like wool.  I really like it and it's easy to work with.

Since the hexagons were sewn together with black thread I decided it made sense to do the quilting in black thread too so I wouldn't have to change color all the time.  I decided to simply do a wandering feather all over the quilt.  Some of the feathers are regular, some are hooked on feathers and some are curl feathers.  I just went for it and didn't worry about making a pattern of any sort.  I like the overall effect.  I used a black Fufu embroidery thread, which I don't think I'll use again for machine quilting.  The bobbin didn't like it much and I had quite a few knots on the back.  No big deal for a simple table topper, but I wouldn't use it on my show quilts for sure.

I went with a black binding and I think it makes a nice frame.  The black is from Island Batik's Fire Island line of fabrics.  You can see how the Cotton/Wool quilted up.  It's pretty flat, but still gives my feathers a little puff.  Perfect for a table topper!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

The Angry Trout Inspiration

This summer we went to one of my favorite restaurants in Grand Marais, Minnesota, The Angry Trout.  Their flowers are absolutely stunning and any of them would make gorgeous quilts.  Enjoy the inspiration and happy Monday!

I really like this snap dragon.  I may have to make it into an applique quilt.

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Black and White...Now What?

I have an entire paper grocery bag full of black and white fabric.  It's mostly geometric prints with a few florals thrown in.  I've been collecting it for years, but have done little with it.  So, what to do?  My original idea was to use it as backgrounds for applique, but somehow I never got around to that.  One day it struck me that maybe the thing to do was to use them in the flowers as accents.

I decided each block needed a print that read "white" and a print that read "black."  I folded each fabric in quarters to use as registration marks when aligning them to my pattern.

Here is layer one.  I put down the white first and then the corals.  One thing I experimented a lot with on this quilt was using different lengths of blanket stitching.  When the fabrics are relatively plain I used a longer stitch and when they were complicated I used a smaller stitch.

On the photo below take a look at the outer pink stitching.  The furthest out stitching is smaller in scale the stitching closer to the center.  I'd never tried that before and I like the results.

For the second layer I added this pretty purple piece.

Here is the stitching from the back again.  I used large stitches since the fabric didn't have a lot of detail.

Final flower!  The last pieces were layer three.  It was really fun fussy cutting the black print for the center of this flower.  I had to double layer the peach because the green background fabric showed through it.  I'm very happy with the final results.

The final back of the flower.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Free Motion Friday - Ornament Chain

I love this pattern!  It's inspired by a zentangle design I saw someone post on Facebook.  Free motion quilting is one of my favorite parts of quilting.  This particular design is done on an Island Batik solid called Cherry.  It is almost solid and just gorgeous.

The directions for Ornament Chain are here.

Start by making a circle about 1 - 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

Ad two sets of curves inside the circle.  They don't have to be perfectly spaced to have a nice effect.  I know.  Mine aren't perfect.

Then go back and add bubbles in the center.  Then make the next circle and repeat until you get to the other side of the block.

When you get to the end of a row, stitch in the ditch until you get to where you want to start the next row.

When you get to and edge and don't have room, do a partial circle to fill the space.                                       

And the final results!  It makes me feel like Christmas is coming.

I'd love to see how your projects are going!  Please share your pictures on my Machine Applique Adventures Facebook Group.  

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy