Island Batik Medallion Quilt - Holiday in the Woods

 

When I first read the theme for the December Island Batik Ambassador Challenge,  I knew I wanted to make a a huge Christmas quilt.  I got started on it right away because I wanted to have time to finish it before December ended.  

I was doing great,  I had the pattern created in the first couple days, started making all the blocks and had the top ready to go a week before Christmas.  

I started quilting it with the intention to show it off on Christmas Day and then Corona hit.  Bleh. I was down for the count for 15 days,  couldn't even stand up at the quilt machine.  But I am finally feeling better and now it is time to show of my December challenge quilt.  I call it Holiday in the Woods.

This was my center block.  Everything revolves around the evening star.

I had a lot of fun pulling different reds and greens to create all the different blocks.

I used several different fabrics from different Island Batik lines and fabrics from the foundations collections.

The Season Splendor line by Kathy Engle that hit stores in May had lots of greens and reds that fit perfect.

For the background I used Island Batik White fabric.

I pulled a scrap out of my personal Island batik collection for the roof of the houses.

I used a bit of green from the American Frontier Collection as well.

The yellows were also from the scrap bin.

Pinwheels, candy, and Stars all ready to be put in rows.

I used EQ 8 to get my rows the perfect size to fit each block.  I started with one center block and kept adding pieced borders to get the look I wanted.

Everything was sewn together using Schemtz needles.  Even the quilting was done with Schmetz.  That's what I love about my Bernina longarm. I can put what ever needle I want in there.

I quilted most of the quilt with White Aurifil Thread #2021.

I also used some Aurifil Yellow # 2120...

And Aufifil Red #2260.  

This quilt is huge just like I wanted,  it measures approximately 84 x 84 inches.

I needed two quilt holders to hold this beauty up.

I am also happy to announce I will be an Island Batik Ambassador again for 2021.   Stay tuned to see what fun Island Batik projects I will be creating this year.

=^..^=

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:

Carla Henton, Creatin’ in the Sticks

Jennifer Fulton, Inquiring Quilter

November 10:

Carolina Asmussen, Carolina Asmussen Designs

Denise Looney, For the Love of Geese

November 11:

Janet Yamamoto, Whispers of Yore

Alison Vermilya, Little Bunny Quilts

November 12:

Megan Best, Bestquilter

Jennifer Strauser, Dizzy Quilter

November 16:

Joanne Hart, Unicornharts

Maryellen McAuliffe, Mary Mack Made Mine

Jennifer Thomas, Curlicue Creations

November 17:

Gail Sheppard, Quilting Gail

Mania Hatziioannidi, Mania for Quilts

November 18:

Sharon Riley, Sew Riley Designs

Sandra Walker, mmm! quilts

November 19:

Carol Moellers, Carol Moellers Designs

Emily Leachman, The Darling Dogwood

November 23:

Connie Kauffman, Kauffman Designs

Suzy Webster, Websterquilt

November 24:

Pamela Boatright, PamelaQuilts

Michelle Roberts, Creative Blonde

November 25:

Vasudha Govindan, Storied Quilts

Leah Malasky, Quilted Delights

November 26:

Sally Manke, Sally Manke Fiber Artist

Gail Renna, Quilt Haven Threads

=^..^=

Thread Painting with Auriful and Island Batik

Phew, this was a hard challenge for me this month. I love quilting thread and really enjoy the quilting part of quilt making, but I don't consider myself a thread painter. I racked my brain all month trying to come up with an idea. I tried to come up with something original on my own but had a serious creative block.  I think it was the fear of painting a photo with thread that really had my creative juices at a stand still.

So I started looking at  patterns created by others, but nothing jumped out at me to go along with Thread Painting.  It was really coming down to the wire.  By Monday Oct 26, I still hadn't picked out a pattern! It was the last week of the month and I had no project ideas to go with all the fantastic colors of 50 weight Aurifil thread I was sent.  

Finally inspiration struck in an odd way. I was cleaning out my email and came across an email I had been saving from Robynie Patterns.

It was an email notification about her new Toucan pattern. My thread colors have always been on my mind and when I saw that toucan again along with all the background space I knew this was it! I bought the pattern and got stitching right away!

I googled some images of toucans and this guy was perfect!  He matched all my threads, so I tried to copy his coloring.

I knew I was running low on time, so I used all my spare time before and after work and pieced this guy together.

I still hadn't seen him from the front till I sewed the last seam.  So when I turned him around I was pretty excited.  He looked so beautiful and colorful.

I grabbed all the Aurifil thread I was sent in my second ambassador box along with a black and got to work with the "Thread Painting", which for me was really heavy custom quilting.  

    Since this was a small project, I was able to use a scrap of Hobbs Heirloom batting I had left over from another ambassador project.

I ended up swapping out some of the threads as I quilted and ended up using seven different Aurifil colors to quilt up Mr. Toucan.

2692 - Black

2545 - Medium Purple

2535 - Magenta

2335 - Light Cinnamon

2120 - Canary

1148 - Light Jade

1231 - Spring Green

For the fabrics, I used a lot of left over Island Batik scraps and some Island Batik foundation yardage:

Petal Sunshine - Yellow Feathers

Apple - Top of the Beach

Leaf Vine - Nasturtium - Bottom of the beak

Marble Charcoal - The black feathers

Surf - Light blue in the beak and the feet

Sahara - The tree branch.

Sprinkles - The background  - one of my favorite Island Batik Neutrals.

The rest of the fabrics were pulled from my Island Batik Scrap Bin.

For the quilting I randomly added flowers to the background in canary and magenta.  

Then I filled in the rest of the background with spring green.  Quilting was a breeze using Schmetz Micro needles.  They are perfect for the thicker Island Batik fabrics.

Aurfil threads seem to have a slight shine to them and their colors are so bright and vibrant.  They look so beautiful next the the Island Batik fabric

Not quite a thread painting, but definitely more quilting than usual to show off all those wonderful colorful Aurifil threads.

=^..^=