Saturday, May 11, 2024

Reflections Blog Hop



Welcome to my day on the Reflections Blog Tour hosted by Jennifer of The Inquiring Quilter.







This blog tour showcases the Reflections fabric line, an Island Batik signature collection by Kathy Engle for Jennifer.





Jennifer sent me a lovely stack of fabrics to play with and I couldn't wait to cut into them. 




I wanted to make a quilt with fairly easy piecing yet still have it look very striking. I went with half rectangles and half square triangles.




The main block is a 5-inch square cut from Island Batik solid black. It is the sashing and cornerstones that do all the work to create the stars.

The sashing is the 2.5 in x 5in Half Rectangle blocks and the cornerstones are black and purple 2.5 inch squares.  The half square triangles finish out the corners.




I had the perfect variegated Aurifil thread in my stash for this project. It matched perfectly with the colors of the fabrics and I knew the heavier weight thread would look fantastic against the black fabric.




I love, love, love this thread! It's so fun!



The heavier thread didn't even break once in my machine.  I followed the needle and bobbin thread guidelines on the Aurifil website for sewing with 40 weight thread and didn't have any issues.

I used a 90/14 Schmetz microtex needle and it worked fantastic. 




Be sure to head over to Jennifer's blog if you haven't already, she is giving away a fat quarter bundle of the Reflections fabric line. 




And if you are on Instagram, check out my post on May 15th for even more goodies to win during the Reflections Instagram Loop. There will be several of us having giveaways from May 15th-17th.





Later this month, Jennifer is also hosting the Broken Road Quilt along to make the quilt below.
Click the photo for more info.





Below is a list of all the blogs participating in the Tour.  Make sure to check them all out!

May 1st - Jennifer @ Inquiring Quilter

May 3rd - Denise @ A Quiltery-For the love of geese

May 4th - Lisa @ Lisa Quilting Passion

May 5th - Suzy @ Websterquilt

May 6th - Andi @ True Blue Quilts

May 7th - Connie @ Kauffmandesigns

May 8th - Emily @ The Darling Dogwood

May 9th - Jane @ Stitch By Stitch Custom Quilting

May 10th - Brianna @ Sew Cute And Quirky

May 11th - Leah @ Quilted Delights (Me)

May 12th - Susan @ Larkspur Lane Designs

May 13th - Brenda @ Songbird Designs

May 14th - Jennifer @ Inquiring Quilter — The Winner is Announced!





Happy Sewing!


=^..^=



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Posted by at 9:00 AM 7 comments

Thursday, April 25, 2024

April Showers Blog Hop Challenge


Welcome to the last day of the April Showers Blog Hop Challenge hosted by Joan of Moose Stash Quilting.  Today I am showing off some cute little quilted table trivets I made.




April showers bring May Flowers and these flowers come from a pattern by Stacy Iest Hsu.  

I used all Island Batik scraps for these. I love the vibrant colors of these batik fabrics.



I used half the block from the orginal pattern to make one mini quilt trivet. My new Oliso Iron, from my Island Batik Ambassador box, came in handy and pressed those tiny corners nice and flat for me.



The first mini quilt went together pretty quick.

  


So I made two more.  



 It's nice to make something small and cute once in a while, particularly after making huge quilts with lots and lots of pieces.  


These will make the perfect spring time gift to shower on a few of my friends.


Be sure to hop on over and check out all the other showered theme posts today:


Thursday April 25


Happy Sewing!


=^..^=



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Posted by at 12:01 AM 14 comments

Sunday, April 21, 2024

Coco Chameleon - A Funky Friends Factory Pattern

 



This month, Island Batik Ambassadors have been playing with stuffed animals!



We each chose one of the Funky Friends Factory patterns and used Island Batik fabric to create one-of-a-kind stuffed animals.

I chose Coco Chameleon. 





For the top of the head and belly, I couldn't resist using an Island Batik foundation print called Chameleon.

For the rest of the body, I pulled some leftover prints from last year's Summer Twilight collection, an original Island Batik collection by Tammy Silvers (Tamarinis). 



Coco went together without any issues.





The pattern has several tips to help prevent sewing pieces together backward.




And a link in the pattern takes you to a set of photo instructions that help with some of the more complicated placements.  I used that a lot.




I love her curvy tail.




And her cute tongue.  
The pattern has instructions for a little flower or bug to put on the tongue but I left that off. 




I used an 80/12 microtex needle from Schmetz to sew everything together.
It sewed all the layers without any problems.





Stop by the other Island Batik Ambassadors pages to see what stuffed animal they chose!
Island Batik has a nice page on their website showing each ambassador and a link to their websites or blogs.

Island Batik Ambassadors



Happy Sewing!


=^..^=



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Posted by at 7:27 PM 3 comments

Monday, March 18, 2024

Give it A Whirl Blog Hop - Double Pinwheels

 



Welcome to the first day of the Give it A Whirl Blog Hop Challenge, hosted by Carol of Just Let Me Quilt. Today I'm showing off my Double Pinwheel Quilt.  It is also my Island Batik Ambassador Project for March, in which we could create any protect we wanted. 


 



For the blog hop we were challenged to create something that included a "whirl". We could use any blocks or fabrics as long as the project had something in it that looked like it was spinning.

I opted for pinwheels and Island Batik Fabric.  I started out with a sketch ...


and then went to EQ8 for my final layout.


The fabric I used is Island Batik Flutter Wings by Kathy Engle.




I used this same fabric for my log cabin quilt last month and had perfect scraps left over for pinwheels.



I decided to paper piece the first pinwheel blocks.



I made a set of warm blocks and a set of cool blocks



Boonky made sure everything was sewn properly.



The second pinwheel blocks filled in the centers between the main pinwheel blocks and the center blocks.


These blocks were sewn with traditional piecing.



Avi sat by while I worked on those.




I was super glad to have the new Oliso Iron that came in my Ambassador box.  Each piece pressed smooth and the top came out super crisp.





Hobbs sent a nice box of batting for the Ambassadors.  For this quilt, I used the Hobbs 80/20 Heirloom Bleached cotton batting.  I love the bleached batting when my quilts have lots of white in them.





The whole quilt was sewn together and quilted with Schmetz 80/12 Microtex needles.








The sunshine sure helps these colors pop!





Be sure to check out all the other whirling projects this week!






Happy Sewing!


=^..^=



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Posted by at 12:01 AM 24 comments
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