Friday, December 31, 2021

Island Batik December Challenge - EPP


This month Island Batik Ambassadors were challenged to make a project using English Paper Piecing...  aka hand sewing.  I don't mind hand sewing, but it usually isn't at the top of my to do list.. but I may have to add it closer to the top of the list.  In my search of something to EPP other than hexagons, I found some great patterns from Sue Daley I want to try.

For this project, I used different Island Batik Scraps left over from other projects and attached a scrappy EPP'd Sunflower to the back of a By Annie's Piecekeeper project bag.   This is a free pattern on the website and also has free add on videos!  This is great if you want to try out By Annie's patterns.  This project goes over most of the basics you will need to make some of her bigger and more complex bags.  It is great to learn with and you end up with a cool project bag.




This one holds everything I need to make more scrappy sunflowers!




I used papers from Sue Daley to make this scrappy sunflowers.  Check out her blog, she has a great pattern using these papers.




I tired different ways to attach the pieces, looking for the the best way to save thread. Then I watched some quick videos on You Tube from Sue Daley and got some good tips.



I already have more pieces sewn together for more flowers. 
Slowly but surely this will come together!


Happy Sewing!


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Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Colorful Horse Quilt



My neighbor asked me if I could make a horse themed quilt for her granddaughter for Christmas.
I also asked what her granddaughter's favorite color was and she said Hot Pink.




I found a colorful horse panel that fit the bill.  Lots of colors and even some hot pink.




I cut out the six horses on the panel and surround each one in with hot pink stars.
I mixed in some matching pinwheels all around and quilted it up.




My husband loves it when I put names on the quilt, so he was really in love with this one.
I used the Alphabet Soup Book by Jaybird Quilts to put her name in the center stripe on the back.




My neighbor asked if I could but a simple label on the back with the date and who it was from.
Easily done with the embroidery machine.

Now that it has been gifted I can show it off.

It was  fun quilt to put together.



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Sunday, December 26, 2021

Two Quick Christmas Quilts

I hope everyone is having a good Christmas Weekend!
Today I want to show off some quick Christmas quilts I made this month.



During Thanksgiving weekend, I went to the sewing closet to look for something and I came across my Christmas Scrap bin.




Getting distracted easily, I pulled it out and looked inside and found several 2.5 inch squares and decided to sew up some Christmas nine patches.




With a little help from Sheen,  I cut and sewed...




and pretty soon had enough nine patches to make two lap quilts.




I put them on the design wall and decided I wanted something else in the off blocks so I tried out a pinwheel.  Looked good to me so I got to cutting.




Using the easy angle ruler I cut triangles from my 2.5 inch Christmas strips and some white and got to sewing.




A lovely pile of half square triangles to iron.




Pressed and ready for the next step




I put two green and two red together. for each pinwheel.  Then added a 1 inch white border all around to get them to 6 inches to match the nine patches.




All laid out on the design board.




The first one all quilted.




Sheen helping again with the binding.




I went with two different colored borders.  
I couldn't decide if I wanted green or red, so I went with one of each.




I really like the red one, but then again red is my favorite color.




The green border turned out pretty good too.




I went with stripped backing for both.


I started these on Thanksgiving weekend and had them both finished by the first weekend in December.

It helped to have some good chunks of sewing time on Thanksgiving weekend.  I finished the rest by sewing an hour or two before or after work the next week.


Merry Christmas!

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Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Blue and Green Delectable Mountains


I need to blog about are these two Delectable Mountain Quilts I finished earlier this fall.  I posted a picture of them on Instagram in October but didn't get around to posting about them on here.

This fall I had two Dad birthday's: my  Dad's birthday and my Father‐in‐laws. I wanted to make both of them something special. They both share the same favorite colors. 



So I went to my Island Batik stash and picked out 20 different greens and 20 different blues and cut a 10 inch strip from each one.  Then I cut those strips into four 10 x 10 squares.

That gave me 80 squares, enough for two quilts with only a few scraps left over.



I cut each square in half diagonally...


 and paired a blue triangle with a green triangle and made 160 half Square triangles. 


I trimmed each one to 9 inches, lots of trimming...



but I had good company.




Then I cut them into 2.25 strips and sewed them into mountains. 



I used the same layout from my first Delectable Mountains Quilt I made this summer.




There are so many layout options, but I was thinking this layout would show off  blue rivers flowing through green mountains... 



well the different shades of blue didn't quite give off that river vibe I was going g for but that's OK. They turned put pretty cool anyway.





They were identical other than the bindings, one has a green binding and the other has a blue binding and the backings were different.  One had a green wide backing and the other I did my stripped backing so I could use up of some older blues and greens from my stash.



Other than the trimming down of the half squared triangles, these two quilts went together quicker than I thought.  It was nice to hand them off to their new owners.



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Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Island Batik Storm at Sea Blog Hop - Twilight Glow



Welcome to my day of the Island Batik Storm at Sea Blog Hop!




Today I get to showcase the new Twilight Glow fabric line by Kathy Engle hitting stores in December.




The name and the colors of this line had me envisioning evenings on the beach watching the different shades and colors of the night sky glow and change as the sun makes its final decent and the stars begin to peak out.

The name itself was the inspiration for my quilt.


The Storm at Sea quilt is made of small and large Square in a Square blocks and Diamonds in Rectangle Blocks. I used the Square Squared ruler by Deb Tucker of Studio 180 Designs along with her supplemental Technique Sheet to get cutting instructions for the double square in a square.







For the diamonds I used the Diamond Recs ruler, again by Deb Tucker.  I love these rulers.  They gave me precise units and I can skip the pulling paper off the back if I would have gone my usual route and paper pieced these.






Since my colors intermingled in the same diamonds and larger squares, I had to pay attention to what colors were sewed where. I used the design wall a lot for this.






Almost done.



This quilt has Hobbs batting inside!
I used their Tuscany Cotton Wool Blend and love how it turned out. The quilt feels so soft!








It was quilted with a bright yellow Auriful thread...




And quilted with a Schmetz quilting needle.










I designed this one in EQ8 and even played around with some fancy borders, but I ran out of the dark blues and purples so I opted for the single thin border and an orange binding.  But you can get glance of what it would look like with some snail trail blocks added in a bigger border.  This version also uses the lightest yellow in the line, which is the only fabric that didn't get into the original version.










The quilt measures about 55 inch square. Perfect for keeping your legs warm while enjoying the fantastic colors at twilight.



And more pictures just for fun.



I couldn't get enough of the fun colors...



So I took a lot of pictures.



Be sure to check out Sally Manke and Suzy Webster to see their version of  the Twilight Glow Storm at Sea.


And if you missed any of the other Ambassadors, check out the Island Batik Blog for all the fun Storm at Sea Quilts showing off the new fabric lines hitting shops now.

And to top it off Island Batik is giving away a 10 inch stack of Sail Away and a strip set of Twilight Glow.  Enter below, or visit their blog to enter.





a Rafflecopter giveaway




Happy Quilting!


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