Island Batik Ambassador's Dresden Plate Blog Hop

This month the Island Batik Ambassadors were challenged to create Dresden Plate quilts.  I have always loved Dresden Plate quilts and I knew I wanted to make something a little different than a traditional setting.  For this project I received the Tropical Bliss collection by Kathy Engle for Megan Best of Bestquilter.  I also pulled out my Dresden Plate die from Accuquilt!

When designing this quilt I knew I wanted to have a planned fabric grouping in each of the fans instead of random.  With all the gorgeous creams and teals in the collection I knew it would be fun to use them in different fans throughout the quilt.  Then I had to decide what else to do.  I decided to use this gorgeous burgundy as the background and when I looked at what I had remaining there were two busy prints that combined all the colors.  I decided to make them into nine patches to tie the quilt all together.

Look at these gorgeous fabrics.  Aren't the turtles fun?  Working with them made me feel like I was on a tropical vacation when I was ironing fabric with my Oliso iron.  I pieced the quilt with my favorite Aurifil 50 weight thread and Schmetz Microtex Needles of course.  I then layered it with my favorite Hobbs 80/20 batting.  

As I was quilting my quilt I decided I wanted to use the lighter pink squares to do some quilting that showed in turquoise.  I mimicked the Dresden shape in the quilting.  I'm happy with how this little detail turned out.  You can also see the feathers in the burgundy background that I quilted in all of the background.

I wanted to quilt minimally in the fans themselves, so I did wavy lines coming from the center of the fan going out on each teal point.  I like how it looks like it's exploding from the middle.

Island Batik is offering a giveaway this week for the blog hop!  Here is the Rafflecopter link.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This week the prizes are Shadow Blooms and Peach Blossom!

Here's where you can get this gorgeous collection.

Creekside Quilts-OR

Fabric and Quilting Delights-HI

Fabric Square-OH

JellyRollFabric.Net

Middlebury Sew & Vac

My Favorite Quilt Store-TX

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Check out all the other wonderful Dresden Plate quilts my fellow Ambassadors have made!

November 4:

• Maryellen McAuliffe, Mary Mack Made Mine
• Lisa Pickering, Lisa’s Quilting Passion

November 5:

• Pamela Boatright, PamelaQuilts
• Connie Kresin Campbell, Freemotion by the River

November 6:

• Mania Hatzioannidi, Mania for Quilts
• Gail Sheppard, Quilting Gail

November 7:

• Megan Best, BestQuilter
• Connie Kauffman, Kauffman Designs

November 8:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 1 and Giveaway

WEEK 2

November 12:

• Lana Russel, Lana Quilts
• Julia Schweri, Inflorescence Designs

November 13:

• Brenda Alburl, Songbird Designs
• Denise Looney, Quiltery

November 14:

• Jane Hauprich, Stitch by Stitch Custom Quilting
• Jennifer Thomas, Curlicue Creations

November 15:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 2 and Giveaway

WEEK 3

November 18:

• Preeti Harris, Sew Preeti Quilts
• Susan Deshensky, Lady Blue Quilt Studio

November 19:

• Renee Atkinson, Pink Tulip Quilting
• Brittany Fisher, Bobbin with Brittany

November 20:

• Leah Malasky, Quilted Delights
• Suzy Webster, Websterquilt
• Sarah Pitcher, Pitcher’s Boutique LLC

November 21:

• Carol Stanek, Stitch With Color
• Emily Leachman, The Darling Dogwood

November 22:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 3 and Final Giveaway

WEEK 4

November 25:

• Sandra Starley, Textile Time Travels
• Victoria Johnson, Forever Quilting For You

November 26:

End of Blog Hop + Final Round Up

Island Batik Ambassador's What's In Your Bag? Challenge

This month the Island Batik Ambassadors were challenge to create a Byannie - Patterns by Annie bag project.  I chose to make a Ditty Bag 2.0.  I found this to be one of Annie's easier patterns and I really enjoyed it.  The add on videos helped with any part I found confusing and it's great to be able to see it being completed in a video.  The first step was to iron all my fabric flat with my wonderful Oliso iron.

I chose to make three different sizes of bags.  While sewing I always do my largest bag first to get an understanding of the pattern.  Then I do the same step on the medium and small bags.  This way when I get to the small pieces I know what to do.  I used a white thread for all my sewing and matching threads for all the quilting.  All Aurifil threads sewn with Schmetz Microtex needles of course.

Here is the small the small Ditty Bag.  It's made with the Island Zest collection from Island Batik.  It has a turtle print stripe!  In retrospect I would have switched the turtle and the red fabric so you could see more turtles.  However, I love it.  It's small and great for a makeup bag or a cord bag when traveling.

The medium Ditty Bag is made with the Poetic Bouquet Collection from Island Batik.  I love this purple and how it makes the purple in the blue print pop.  It's a great size for a small medicine bag for a short trip or for holding your quilting notions.

The large Ditty Bag was made with the Turtle Cove Collection by Island Batik.  I love how you can really see the turtles on this one.  In retrospect I would've picked a more contrasting print for the stripe, but it's still a lot of fun.   It's a big bag.  I would probably even work as a lunch bag.

These are all wonderful bags and I can't wait to give them to some of my favorite people for Christmas!

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Island Batik Ambassador's Adventurous Applique Blog Hop with Aurifil

This month the Island Batik Ambassadors were challenged to create applique quilts using the edge coloring technique and 40 weight Aurifil thread.  I have always loved the Fantasy Flowers Accuquilt die by Robbi Joy Ecklo.  It's a larger flower at almost 14 inches across which means it's excellent to show off fabrics!

Applique has always been one of my favorite things to do and it was fun to learn a new technique.  

For this project I received the Floral Fun collections.  It's a gorgeous array of blue, green, and purple.  It's designed by Kathy Engle for Terri Vanden Bosch of Lizard Creek Quliting.

I decided to make each flower in a different set of colors.  Here's one such arrangement.  I love this deep dark purple.  So pretty.

Here is another set of fabrics for a flower.

In order to do the edge stitching method you glue down the pieces and don't use any fusible.  I was having trouble with squeezing the glue bottle (it was hurting my hand).  So I went online to see what other kind if bottles I might use.  I found these tiny ones at Michaels and they worked perfectly and it was so much easier!

In order to get the hexagonal symmetry of this block right I ironed my background fabric so I knew where to put down the initial green leaves.  

Then I added the petals.

I picked out threads to use for this project and was glad to be using 40 weight.  It provided a thicker line than my usual 50 weight Aurifil.  I found switching to a slightly larger needle also helped keep the 40 weight thread happy in my machine.  I used a size 90 Microtex Needle by Schmetz Needles.  

I used an open toe applique foot to stitch back and forth along the edge of the petal using my 40 weight Aurifil Thread.  I also found it helpful to use the same weight and color thread in the top and bobbin while doing the edge stitching.

The top is complete!  Time to get layering with my favorite Hobbs Batting 80/20 Cotton/Poly batting.  I decided to offset the flower blocks with some piecing.  This my version of a delectable mountains block.

I did some simple stippling to finish off the quilt and some curvy quilting in the blues.  I love how this quilt turned out!

Island Batik is having a giveaway of two fat quarter bundles!  Click below to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Be sure to check out all the other amazing quilts in the blog hop!

WEEK 1

September 3:

• Mania Hatziioannidi, Mania for Quilts
• Sarah Pitcher, Pitcher’s Boutique LLC

September 4:

• Connie Kauffman, Kauffman Designs
• Denise Looney, Quiltery

September 5:

• Connie Kresin Campbell, Freemotion by the River
• Brittany Fisher, Bobbin with Brittany
• Lana Russel, LanaQuilts

September 6:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 1 and Giveaway

WEEK 2

September 9:

• Brenda Alburl, Songbird Designs
• Lisa Pickering, Lisa’s Quilting Passion

September 10:

• Megan Best, BestQuilter
• Gail Sheppard, Quilting Gail

September 11:

• Kim Jamieson-Hirst, Chatterbox Quilts
• Jane Hauprich, Stitch by Stitch Custom Quilting

September 12:

• Carol Stanek, Stitch With Color
• Julia Schweri, Inflorescence Designs
• Victoria Johnson, Forever Quilting For You

September 13:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 2 and Giveaway

WEEK 3

September 16:

• Suzy Webster, Websterquilt
• Jennifer Thomas, Curlicue Creations

September 17:

• Preeti Harris, Sew Preeti Quilts
• Emily Leachman, The Darling Dogwood
• Leah Malasky, Quilted Delights

September 18:

• Sandra Starley, Textile Time Travels
• Susan Deshensky, Lady Blue Quilt Studio

September 19:

• Pamela Boatright, PamelaQuilts
• Renee Atkinson, Pink Tulip Quilting
• Maryellen McAuliffe, Mary Mack Made Mine

Island Batik Ambassador's Marvelous Minis Challenge

This month the Island Batik Ambassadors have been challenged to make Marvelous Minis.  I love making mini quilts because they are quick, but I can explore something new.  I have been itching to paper piece (which works slick with my favorite Schmetz Microtex Needles) lately so I decided to do a mariners compass.  

One thing I know about myself is that I like to make all designs my own.  So I pulled up a fairly basic mariner's compass block in Electric Quilt 8 and then played with the design adding more triangles, etc.  Here is my final result!  It's nice and flat due to a final pressing with my Oliso iron.  

I used mostly solid scraps pulled from my scrap bin and some white.  I also decided while I was having fun to do some quilting in colored thread.  Each colored area is quilted over twice with 50 weight Aurifil thread.  I used Hobbs cotton/wool batting because I like the extra puff it gives to my quilts.

This quilt was a blast and I can't wait to hang it on the wall!

I like to use matching bobbin thread when I free motion quilt so here's the back.  Sometimes it's as much fun as the front!

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy