Today starts week two of the Island Batik Ambassadors Paper Pieced Celebrations Blog Hop and I am showing off "Frog Eyes", my newest quilt using the Lavandin fabric line.
Lavandin is an original Island Batik collection by Claudia Pfeil
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When I received it in my ambassador box, I wasn't sure what celebration it could go with.
I was loving the teals and purples, but the greens were throwing me off a bit. It wasn't till I looked up lesser known holidays that I became inspired.
I learned that May 13th is National Frog Jumping Day.
It's amazing what celebration you can find for each day of the year. There are a few other lesser know celebrations going on today, but for me, this one matches the fabric colors perfectly. The greens symbolize the frogs and the purple and teals represent the water and the lily pads frogs play on. Once I had my celebration I got to sewing!
The design reminded me of colorful frog eyes peeking out of the water at me. A whole swamp full of frogs. I can even hear them croaking at me as the sun goes down.
This quilt is made up of 48 blocks. Each block is a half square triangle, and each triangle has fourteen pieces in it. When I have paper piecing projects like this, I like to assembly line sew and turn on a good show or music to listen to in the background.
I sew all pieces 1 and 2 together for each block, press, trim, and then move on to piece three.
Everything gets lined up in a row for cutting, usually as many as fit across the cutting mat: Layout five, trim, clear, layout five more... It's a nice system for me when sewing a lot of the same block.
I do press between each piece, and the new Oliso Iron that came in my Ambassador box is great for this. The iron gets nice and hot which helps my pieces lay flat ready for the next section
Avi was taking his inspection duties seriously this time.
He also enjoyed the Hobbs Heirloom Natural cotton batting I used for the inside. He tried several times to sit on it once I took it out of the bag. This batting made the quilt super soft and quilted up beautifully.
I used a light green Aurifil thread for the quilting. It wasn't too bright for the darker colors and added a wee bit of color to the tan Island Batik Blender fabrics I used for the background.
Avi was trying hard to get up and take a nap as soon as I had everything loaded up on the long arm.
He was sure I had just made the perfect kitty hammock.
Everything quilted up nicely with a Schemtz 80/12 microtex needle.
Again the thread and needle combo were perfect. No thread breakage at all for me.
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The paper piecing really helped me get nice points on the odd angled diamonds and the half square triangle chains.
I love how these prints play so well together!
I took the quilt to the park around the block. It was a lovely day with a perfect spring breeze. While I was there I did see ten turtles sitting on a log, but no frogs.
Surely the black swamp water has a plethora of frogs waiting for the jumping games to begin!
The quilt Measures 60 in x 78 in.
To honor the holiday, I am going to read the short story that started it all, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain.
And if you want to make your own Frog Eye Quilt, click on the image below for the paper piecing pattern for the two triangles, A and B, that when sewn together create one block.
A and B make look similar, but they are mirror images of the diamond shapes.
To make the same quilt you will need 48 blocks total. 6 blocks across and 8 down.
The blocks measure 9 inches finished.
Be sure to check out the Island Batik Blog to enter this week's giveaway!
You can also enter using the Rafflecopter below.
Be sure visit my fellow Ambassadors who also had this same fabric line today and see what they are celebrating!
Happy Sewing!
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