Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Island Batik Marvelous Mini

 


 Is it Christmas yet?  🎄 

It's getting pretty close! The last four months of the year always go so fast. But this year I'm ready! I already have a new Christmas quilt for the season and now I have a nice mini quilt to go with it.



This month Island Batik Ambassadors were challenged to create a Marvelous Mini Quilt. Mini quilts are marvelous for many reasons:

They make great decorations, they can be used to test hard blocks, they are small enough to practice different Quilting motifs, and they help use up the last bit of scraps from another project.


(I'm loving this new wool pressing mat from Prairie Spirit Alpacas)


For my mini quilt I decided to use up the left over Winter Wonders scraps from my New York Beauty project from June. You can find this fabric line in stores now.

These Christmasy fabrics by Kathy Engle are right up my alley and I had just enough to make a small lonestar.

I still had a little more fabric left over so I decided to add some triangles and borders as well. The size of each shape was determined by how much fabric I had left.  This really was a design as you go project. 



I even had the perfect sized scrap of Hobbs Heirloom Premium cotton batting for the middle.





For the quilting I used some red, green, and yellow thread from Aurifil and used a Schmetz Microtex Chrome needle.  They play together perfectly.








I did some simple custom quilting in each section.




This Marvelous Mini measures approximately 23 x 23 inches. 


Are you following along with all the other Island Batik Ambassadors?


Follow this link to check them out:

2022 Island Batik Ambassadors 



Happy Sewing!


=^..^=





Thursday, August 25, 2022

See Ya Later, Alligator Blog Hop


 Its been a great week so far of quilty travel ideas for the "See ya later, Alligator Blog Hop" and today is my turn to show off my projects.  We were supposed to create something inspired by travel for the hop.  Anything from places to go, to how you get there, and anything in between.



Well I was inspired by anything in between.  Let me explain how it relates....



Today is my husband's 50th birthday and we traveled to Raleigh, NC for his big 50th birthday party.  His parents will be there, along with five of his siblings and all five of his adult children.  


It's a mini family reunion!  That is definitely something to travel for.




In the past I have given away quilts to some of  my husband's siblings on their 50th birthdays so a quilt for my husband on his 50th birthday only seemed right, but the more I thought about it, the more I started thinking like a hobbit.  



After all this was a big birthday party, and people were coming from all over....



Plus my husband has always been a giver and he would rather give than to receive...



So instead of  making a quilt for my husband, I decided to make 8 jelly roll race quilts for my husband to give away to the families that traveled so far to see him on his 50th birthday.  



Making these quilts for him to give to his family is a way better gift for him than having him open up only one for himself.




When this idea came to me I only had a couple months before the party so I had to use a pattern I could sew up pretty quick.



 I also wanted the quilts to be extra special and have some meaning behind them, after all it's not everyday someone turns 50.



So I cut out 50 strips for each quilt. 



Also each quilt, from front to back, has 50 different blue prints, my husband's favorite color. 



Each family now has a special quilt to take back home with them to always remember the fun we had together during my my husband's 50th birthday party!






Make sure to click on the links below to be taken to all the other hoppers showing off what inspired them for this hop!




Monday, August 22nd



Tuesday, August 23rd



Wednesday, August 24th



Thursday, August 25th



Happy Sewing!


=^..^=