Island Batik Ambassador Scrapbuster Challenge

 

I had a lot of fun with this month's Island Batik challenge.  Going through all my different Island Batik scraps is always fun and always full of color.  This month I turned my leftover scraps into a Hunter's Star Quilt. 

 This is the first time I have made this type of quilt and I used the Accuquilt Hunter Star die to help me cut everything out.  I like this die as it cuts out all the shapes with one pass and cuts off all the dog ears at the same time.  

  I needed a strip about 4 inches wide to cover the cutouts on the die.  So I went through my leftover Island Batik Scraps and pulled out every scrap piece 4 to 5 inches wide and started cutting.

I also cut some 4 inch strips of Island Batik black solid for the contrasting half of the block.  I love bright colors on a black background.  So pretty!

There are lots of pieces in this quilt. 960 to be exact.

I decided to make the Star sections scrappy, so each star has 4 different colored fabrics. 

The colorful parts that make the stars are attached to the black contrasting section so I randomly grabbed two different colors for each strip and got to sewing. 

Once I had all all the colored triangles sewn together I put them on the design wall and tried to spread out the colors a bit.  I wanted the quilt to have a scrappy look, but I also didn't want all the pinks on one side.  There are some colors touching, but I tried to avoid the same print touching.  Which wasn't too hard as there are lots of different prints.

Then I turned all the triangles in the right direction to form the stars.  It looks cool with the white spaces in-between.  Could be a whole other quilt design.

Then I added the black counterparts and "oohed" and "aahed" over it for a bit before sewing the triangles together into squares.

Loving how those colors pop against the black.

The triangle halves went together nicely. Again it helps to have perfectly cut pieces.

Sewing the rows.

Look at this kitty. I had the top all finished and back on the design wall measuring it for the borders and he decided he didn't like it up there.  In one jump he launched himself into the middle of the design board, hung there for a bit, then used his paw to grab the top and pulled the whole thing off the wall. Then he sat right in the middle of it. Crazy cat.

I broke out the black Hobbs Batting for this one.  I really like the black batting, its just fun to see it on the frame behind the quilt and it hides all the stray black threads that get stuck under the lighter prints. It's quilts up beautifully.

Lots of in the ditch quilting in this one,  I went around each piece.

I played around with what to quilt in each triangle section, but eventually found my groove after the first row.  I used black thread on the black and a light green in all the colors and of course used a Schmetz Needle.

Trying out different quilt poses.

In this one I get to show off the quilt and  my neighbors blossoming azaleas.

Yay for Spring!

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Green Jelly Roll Race

Jelly Roll Race Quilts are fun and quick to sew up.

After cutting forty two different  2.5 inch strips from my stash I sewed up the top in about an hour and a half.  Normally these are made with pre cut jelly rolls, but I did not have a green Jelly Roll that would work well.  I had one, but it only had eight different fabrics, 5 strips each of print.  The eight prints are pretty, but they wouldn't make a very diverse quilt so I created my own set of green strips.a

Even the white squares have light green dots in them.

 

I quilted it with some green thread.  I started out with a meander but then added some leaves and wavy lines and what ever else struck my fancy.

I pieced the back with more green.  This quilt is definitely made for someone who loves green!

Happy Quilting!

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Jeff's T-shirt Quilt

This quilt was a long time in the making.  I was given the shirts several years ago and finally got them together in 2020.  My husband (on the right) is always telling me to put names on people's quilts.  Usually he means embroider them on the quilt top somewhere, but an embroidered name didn't seam to fit this quilt, so I pieced the name in big yellow letters at the top.  It was the perfect way to top off off all these school sport t-shirts.  

It took me a little fiddling to come out with the layout.  Not every shirt is the same height or width.  I didn't want to cut out any of the logos on the shirts so they came out different sizes.

I had to add a couple extra pieces of t-shirt material to make all the rows the same length but everything finally came together.  I added a thing black border to tie everything together.  

After I was corona free, I delivered it to its new owner in February.  He was very excited to get it and is going to hang it up in his office at school.

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Create for a Cause Island Batik Blog Hop

The February Challenge for Island Batik Ambassadors was to create a quilt to donate to any cause we wished.  I started out with this Turnstile quilt and I had so much extra time on my hands due to covid that I made a few more.  Since I had to wait several weeks to go back to work, even though I was feeling better, I spent a lot of time in my sewing room. 

I will be saving a few of the quilts for a fund raising auction done by our local youth group.  When they are allowed to group again, they will need to raise money for their summer camps.  The other quilts I will donate to Project Linus.  Project Linus' mission is to: "Provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer “blanketeers.”

  

I was given an Island Batik half yard bundle of Summer Fields designed by Kathy Engle to play with.

I wanted to be able to show off as many of the prints as I could so I played around in EQ8 and picked out a block called Turnstile and put it on point with some sashing.

The Turnstile block ended up being 8 inches so I checked the Quilt in a Day book that came with my Accuquilt Ready.Set.Go! Cube and this block was in there! 

  I only needed two dies from the cube set to make the block.

Die #3 for Half Square Triangles

And die #4 for Quarter Square Triangles.

I love how the Accuquilt dies cut off the dog ears. The triangles come out perfect.  No need to trim them down after sewing.  Everything fits together so nice.

I quilted this one using Hobbs Poly-Down batting.

I haven't used polyester batting in a long time, but this one was a surprise.  There was no bearding and the fabric didn't slip around like I am used to with other polyester battings.  It was actually quite nice to work with and the quilt came out nice and fluffy.

Again, I used Schmetz Needles for the piecing and the quilting.  

Those microtex needles are fantastic!

When I was cutting my triangles for my Turnstile Quilt,  I had some left over 5 inch strips, so I decided to whip up another quick quilt.  I cut triangles from the left over strips and added them to some triangles from some background fabric called Moo Milk.  Moo Milk is part of the Island Batik Foundations and goes well with all the colors in Summer Fields.

These triangles sewed up super quick.

I used left over pieces of Hobbs Heirloom Premium Batting for this quilt and the last three little ones.

Again,  I had a lot of time on my hands.  So I cut out even more fabric from the Summer Fields bundle.  This time I cut bricks.

I cut a lot of 4 x 8 inch rectangles and made two small kid quilts and one small baby quilt.

To cut the sashing, I used my 1/2 inch finished strip die from Accuquilt.

I have cut lots of 1 inch strips in the past, but sometimes they get wonky so this die was nice.  It cut each strip precise.  No wonky strips and it was super fast. I cut enough bricks to make two small kid quilts.

I hadn't planned on making the smaller baby quilt, but I had some left over blues and yellows that didn't fit in with the other two brick quilts, so I decided to use them up in another smaller quilt.  I used a little wider sashing in this one to help get some extra width to it.

I quilted all five quilts with some light yellow Auriful thread.  

The yellow was perfect on the darker blues/greens and blended right in with the off white background.

The Brick Quilt pattern and the Half Square Triangle quilt are some of my favorite quick quilts to make and give away.  You can sew them up in an afternoon and with some swirly quilting or meandering they quilt up super fast and look great.  They also showcase off lots of different fabrics, perfect for scraps.

I used a lot of the Summer Fields bundle making these, but I still had enough fabric left over to cut some 2.5 inch strips for a strip tube quilt.  I ran out of the blue yardage though for a border so once I get a good color to go with Summer fields I finish it up and show it off. 

What are your favorite quick quilt patterns to sew up for charity quilts?

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