Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Triangle Tricks with Island Batik


The May Challenge for Island Batik Ambassadors is Triangle Tricks.  We were challenged to get out of our comfort zone and play around with triangles. Well, that was good news for me because triangles are totally in my comfort zone!





I love working with triangles! They create so many different fun patterns. The challenge for me was trying to figure out what triangles I wanted to use! To make it easy I decided to use several different sizes and shapes of triangles in my project. 






I wanted something a little scrappy so I opened up some of these cute blue stash builders. Each roll has four 5 inch strips x WOF and there are 5 rolls per bundle; so 20 prints. There is a lot of fabric in these little bundles and lots of variety in prints. I ended up using three full rolls for this little quilt plus some background fabric. 




For the cutting I used the Accuquilt go cutter. I love cutting triangles with these dies. They always come out accurate and sew up so nice with the notches helping everything line up.  And the dog ears are already cut off! Can't beat that.




I ran 12 different prints through the machine with different triangle dies.





I used the 3 inch finished HST, the 1.5 inch finished HST, and the 3 in finished Square in a Square. 



No fabric was wasted on these. That left over fabric at the top of these cuts was perfect for my four patch squares.



The white background is one of my favorite Island Batik Foundation prints called Sprinkles.
I ran that through the die cutter as well. 




I cut out the blue triangle parts of the flying Geese by hand. After that I went to look on the Accuquilt site to see if they had a die for 1.5 x 3 inch flying Geese and they do! They sell it in a combo: The 1.5 HST and the 3 in QST.  I actually have both dies! Doh! I used the 1.5 HST for the white part, but it didn't dawn on me to use the 3 in QST die for the blue geese triangles. I'll have to spend more time on the Accuquilt site looking for other combos and ideas for future projects.


Out of all my blocks the Geese came out just a wee bit wonky.  Again, that's why I love these dies for cutting triangles. I do way less fudging when I use them.  Everything sews up so smooth.




I pieced the quilt using some leftover white Auriful Thread from one of my other quilting projects and quilted it with Hobbs Premium Heirloom Batting.







And as always it was sewn and quilted with Schmetz Needles. I love their chrome microtex needles. They are perfect for Island Batik fabrics.





This quilt is a small blue version of a Faceted Jewel quilt. It measures 42 inch square and the triangles in a square help give the illusion of circles.  Oh how these triangles play tricks and pretend to be curves. 




Happy Sewing!


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Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Picnic Quilt - Foodie Blog Hop

 Welcome to day two of the Foodie Blog Hop hosted by Carla of Creatin in the Sticks!




When I first signed up for the hop I had envisioned a taco themed quilt with lots of triangles but then the taco fabric I ordered ended up not coming. It was out of stock...bummer.  On to plan B.  But I didn't have plan B, so I started thinking...




Last year one of my sons said he wanted a picnic quilt. I asked him what a picnic quilt looks like. He said it can look like anything, just something to take on a picnic.  I explained to him the life cycle of quilt and that most picnic quilts, which are usually laid on the ground, have already lived a long useful life before they become picnic quilts.  He said he wanted a new quilt, he didn't want to wait for its life cycle to become a picnic quilt.  So I got to work on a new picnic quilt.




I had been wanting to make this particular Diamond Irish Chain quilt for awhile and I figured it would be perfect for a picnic quilt.  I showed my son a picture and asked if this would qualify and he agreed it would but he wanted it to be a bit bigger.  The photo I showed him was a smaller quilt.  This one measures 67 inch square, big enough for two people to sit on.




This version uses "left overs". Perfect for a foodie blog hop.
I pulled out scraps from both my bright and neutral fabrics, and whipped up something delicious.




The large half square triangles are pretty big and make a 9 inch diamond block and the center nine patches in the chain blocks are three inches!  I love tiny pieces! Lots of fun playing with big and little scraps for this one.




And for the back I had the perfect picnic fabric, Hot Dogs and Pizza!




My son's favorite color is orange so I used orange strips to fill out the rest of the back and the green strips help bring out the relish on the hotdogs and peppers on the pizza.




Waiting on the taco fabric that never came put me a little behind, so I didn't quite have enough time to quilt this one, but it is almost ready to go.  Just need to get the batting ready and get it on the frame!



Thanks for stopping by and make sure to visit all the other bloggers showing off their Foodie creations today!




Happy Sewing!


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Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Wonderful World of Color Blog Hop

 


Welcome! It's day three of the wonderful World of Color Blog Hop and today I'm showing off some colorful Wonky Hearts.




This wonky heart die from Accuquilt is perfect for 10 inch squares and my Island Batik Ambassador box came with the perfect stack of Island Batik Contempo - by Kathy Engle for Kate Colleran Designs LLC.




These hearts sewed up super quick.  
The longest part was deciding which colors to pair with each other.





I really like the look of all the hearts together without sashing, but then quilt would have been super small.  The blocks come out to 6 inch finished.






So I fiddled with some sashing.  I used the Island Batik foundation print called Heavenly.  At first I cut a 2.5 inch strip, but I wasn't quite feeling it...





So I took off an inch and made it smaller... much better.





For the outer border I used the Island Batik Foundation called Twilight.




For the back I used another Island Batik foundation print called Ivy in Tourmaline with a strip of left over Island Batik Butterfly print running down the middle.




This quilt is loaded with color from front to back.




I quilted it with yellow thread.  It popped just right on everything.





Be sure to hop on over to the other blogs check out all the other creations today!




Sunday, April 17, 2022

A Herd of Mini Mooses



It's a herd of mini Mooses!  




This month's Island Batik Ambassador challenge was to use one of the patterns by Funky Friends Factory.




I chose the Mickey Moose Pattern.




I knew right away I wanted to make four for a mini herd.




But when I was finished with the four I started stacking them and thought to myself, "If I a make two more I can have a moose pyramid."  So I made two more.





I pulled out some of the Island Batik foundations that came in some of my Ambassador boxes. The first moose used the basic foundation called Tourmaline and I added some purple antlers and blue feet.  For moose two and three I used the foundation basics blue bubbles and green netting.  I had some left over fabric from the Mandala Magic fabric line and I choose the pink and green splat print for moose number four.




This pink one was the 5th one I made and I used another older Island Batik line called Sweet Hearts,  you might can still find some of this in shops.




These were all sewn together with Schemtz chrome Microtex needles.  
I really love these needles for the Island Batik fabrics.  Everything sews together so smooth.








We found the perfect field for them to graze.




I made the brown one last.  I found a perfect left over piece of brown in my Island Batik scrap pile and added some different Island Batik Blenders for his nose, belly, hooves, and Antlers.





These moose were fun to put together.  The pattern is nicely written and it even has link addresses for visual photos and more tips on how to put everything together. Those helped out a lot. 





It was fun going through the different Island Batik fabrics coming up with different color combos.


Be sure to check out the Funky Friends Factory and see all the fun patterns they have.  There are so many cute animals to make.


Happy Sewing!


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Thursday, March 31, 2022

Dolomite Mountains with Aurifil

 


This month Island Batik Ambassadors got to play with some colorful Aurifil threads from their Italian Color Builders collection.



I choose to work with the Dolomite greens.  I had not heard of the Dolomite mountains before, but when I googled it and saw those pretty green hills and valleys in front of the gray mountains I knew I wanted to play with some lush green thread and green fabrics.








Most of the fabrics I used are from Island Batik's foundation line along with a couple scraps leftover from other projects. You can find a foundation print to go with almost any Island Batik collection coming out. They are so versatile.


Now I had the thread and I had picked the fabric, all I needed was a pattern idea!  


Then March came...  and kept going... and I still didn't' have a pattern idea.

I spent most of the month mulling over different ideas of what to create.  I originally envisioned making a landscape quilt, but I couldn't settle on a layout I really liked.  Finally as the end of the month was nearing the idea came.


Something a little more blocky than curvy.




I jotted it down.  A rough sketch on a very small piece of paper.  This was my working pattern. I even taped it to the sewing machine so I could look at it for reference as I put the quilt together.



Since the challenge this month was to be a small wall hanging I went with small pieces.  The small squares measure 1 inch finished.  The rectangles measure 1 x 2 inch finished.






The quilting was fun.  Even though the pattern was blocky, I used the thread to add some curves.  





The curves and waves contrast quite nicely with the sharp edges of the squares and rectangles.  





To me the thread has created movement of rolling hills, climbing mountains, and a windy sky.





I added some extra Aurifil colors to finish out the quilting.












I had the perfect size scrap of Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Bleached Cotton Batting for this project.  

It shows off the quilting beautifully.






And of course, sewn together and quilted with a Schmetz microtex needle.





Happy Sewing!


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