Quilted Delights: November 2020

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Inspired by Nature Island Batik Blog Hop - Tropicana Twist

For the past few weeks Island Batik Ambassadors have been showing off their nature inspired creations using the new fabric lines coming out from Island Batik.

I got to play with Tropicana Twist designed by Kathy Engle.
These beauties should be hitting your shops in December.

This fabric line reminded me of big bright flowers and tropical beaches. I could see yellow and orange tropical flowers with an array of green leaves, and of course the blues of the ocean.

It is bright and colorful, right up my alley.

My design started out with a simple drawing with a lot of two and half inch strips.

But as I played around with layout designs in EQ8 I finally settled on this one.

My kids said it looks like a background you would see in Bikini Bottom, the home of SpongeBob Square Pants.

The flowers were paper pieced. Same for the small leaves, well if you want to call them leaves.

When I sketched it out it looked like a leaf, but when I sewed it up it looked more like an asterisk. Either way I was already committed so I sewed up 26 of those little asterisk leaves.

I was taking my time in the beginning of the month paper piecing everything, enjoying the process, and watching the flowers and leaves develop one piece at a time.

But, the the end of the month was coming closer and I still had a lot of little leaves and a few more flowers to sew. I timed myself and it took me 20 minutes to sew just one small leaf.

It was definitely time to start chain piecing. I took some time to cut out all the pieces I needed and put them in order to sew. I sewed all of piece one and then moved on to the next numbered piece. It actually shaved off lots time this way. When I chained pieced 14 leaves at once it only took 3 hours. I saved myself about an hour and a half.

As I was sewing them, I realized how practical it was for Henry Ford to come up with the assembly line for production. Sew a piece on all 14, iron all 14, prep for the next piece on all 14, sew the next piece.... Repeat. I didn't realize how much time is used picking up and putting down the rotary cutter each time for each individual piece. If you keep the rotary cutter in your had and cut all 14 at once, you have saved time, and when you are trying to beat the clock, every second counts.

I quilted an all over flower swirl design using a nice bright yellow Aurifil Thread number 2120 - Canary Yellow.

And of course I used some Hobbs Natural Cotton Batting. It is some good stuff.

And I don't get far without my Schmetz Needles. They are my go to needle for everything. I am still using the microtex needles for these Island Batik projects. They stitch up batiks super nice.

This is a fun quilt lap size quilt. It measures 48 x 56.

Make sure to visit Vasudha Govindan of Storied Quilts.
Today she is also showing off her creation using the Tropicana Twist Fabric Line.

And stop by the Island Batik blog for a chance to win these fabulous Island Batik Bundles.

And if you missed any days, make sure to go back and see all the wonderful creations made by my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors as they were inspired by nature with these fabulous fabric collections.

November 9: