Christmas in July - Island Batik Ambassador Challenge

I love sharing my love of quilting and this month Island Batik and Accuquilt are letting me do just that in a big way!

For the July Challenge, Ambassadors were sent a an Accuquilt GO! Me Fabric Cutter Starter Set, a small version of their GO! Fabric Cutter that includes a GO! Half Square Triangle-3” Finished Square and GO! Quarter Square Triangle-3” Finished Square.  

We were challenged to make a project using only the dies that came with the starter set and give that project and the Go Me Starter Set to someone.

I chose to give it to my friend Catrina. She came to my beginner quilt class over a year ago and has really taken off with quilting.  A month before class she had never even opened her sewing machine and now her goal this year is to finish nine quilts for her relatives for Christmas. She is almost done with all the tops! She said the next quilt she is going to make is a pinwheel quilt so this cutter set is perfect for her! 

I wanted to make a throw sized quilt for Catrina and asked her in advance some of her favorite colors. She gave me a lot to play with: Blue, green, teal, ocean colors, and sunset colors. 

I went through all the fabrics Island Batik sent me ended up using the last bit of my blues from River Valley fabric line - created for Deb Tucker of 180 Studio Desings by Kathy Engle, a wee bit of orange from the Ancient Etchings line - designed by Jackie Kunkel of Canton Village Quilt Works, and several pieces from Island Batiks foundations: Pumpkin, Cornmeal, Lagoon, Wavy Dots Cherry, and Sprinkles for the white background,

I cut strips wide enough to cover the die, layered them up and ran it through the Go Me.  I cut out my Half Square Triangles within 15 minutes the first night and cut out the Quarter Square Triangles the next evening. Cutting was super quick.

This quilt is made by alternating two different variations of the Ohio Star Block, each block is made with only HSTs and QSTs.

Block A

Block B

Block B.   I like to sew one block and then chain piece the rest.  I stack the finished squares in the layout I want them and then start sewing.  

These are the pieces for the Quarter Square triangles for Block A.

Again, I put all my pieces in the layout they should be in the quilt.

Then turn them slightly so the seam I want is facing the way they will go under the sewing machine.  That way I know I am sewing on the correct edge.

All my Block Bs with one block A.

Working on Block A. I stacked these as well and eventually made one big pile of unpieced A blocks then chain pieced them together in rows.

These blocks show off a lot of the River Valley blue fabrixs.

 

I wasn't sure how to quilt this until Catrina commented on one of my instagram photos this block reminded her of Hawaiian Lava, then it hit me to quilt some all over flames.  I used a lovely soft yellow Auriful Thread for this, #2130 and in the middle of the quilt sandwich is Hobbs Nautical Cotton batting. 

 

And of course I quilted it with a Schmetz microtex needle.

I seldom think to take a picture of the needle, but these needles work great with my projects!

Some of the Quilting

This one ended up being border-less.  And goes slightly over throw size by a few inches.

It measures 45 x 63.

Make sure to check out all the other Island Batik Ambassadors to see their Christmas in July projects and their recipients.  Happy Quilting!

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Island Batik Ambassador Box #2

It's that time of year again when Island Batik sends us ambassadors a box of wonderful supplies to finish up the challenges for 2020. Check out my unboxing video to see all the goodies I get to work with for the rest of the year!  Close up photos and links below.

Happy Quilting!

Ruler from 180 Studio Design by Deb Tucker

William's Garden.  Precuts Available now.  Yardage coming in September/October,

Island Batik Foundations.

American Frontier available now.

byAnnie supplied everything to make the Divide & conquer bag.

Thread by Aurifl

Several different battings from Hobbs

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June Challenge - Island Batik Ambassador

June was a free theme for Island Batik Ambassadors.  That meant we could make anything we wanted!  I knew I better decide on a project fast, otherwise I would dilly dally with a hundred different ideas and end up rushing at the last minute to finish one.  

This quilt came about from a comment made by one of my young friends, Christopher. It was a comment he made on my fabric giveaway post last month on Instagram. To enter the giveaway you had to leave a comment about what you would make if you won the fabric. Christopher commented, "I'll keep it and ask my friend's mom to make me something memorable for my apartment during/after college."

Of course his friend's mom is me. Well, the random generator didn't pick Christopher's comment, but I could not pass up this opportunity to make him a quilt, particularly since I already knew what fabric colors he liked!

The fabric line is River Valley designed by Kathy Engle for Deb Tucker’s Studio 180 Design.

Island Batik had given me plenty of fabric for my May Challenge so I had enough left over to make something for Christopher. I just needed to find a pattern that fit the amount of fabric I had left.

I asked my son if Christopher would like triangles. He said, "Sure. I think he would like anything you made." So I decided to recreate the Diamond Bar quilt I made in February using River Valley.

This quilt is made using two different triangle blocks.  One with a large colored triangle center surrounded by neutral bars, and one with a small neutral colored triangle surrounded by colored bars. These are similar to making log cabins, but with triangles instead of squares.

Below are the measurements I used for cutting my triangles.  If you want to make your own you can use your favorite 60 degree ruler to cut your peices.

Triangle A: Colored Center

Using a 60 degree  ruler, cut 36 triangles from a colorful 4 inch strip.

Using neutral fabrics cut 1 1/2 inch strips. Line up the 5 inch mark on the triangle ruler with the bottom of the 1 1/2 fabric strip and cut out 36 bottom bars. Do the same, lining up the ruler on the on the 6 inch and 7 inch line and cut 36 pieces of each.

Triangle B: Neutral Center

Using a 60 degree ruler, cut 36 triangles from a neutral 2 1/2 inch strip.

Cut the outer bars from 2 inch colored strips.  Use the 4, 5 1/2, and 7 inch markings on the triangle ruler to cut 36 each colorful bars . Cut 36 of each size.  Or you can sew and trim each section one triangle at a time.

I used the off white fabric I had left from River Valley and then supplemented the rest with Whip Cream from Island Batik's Foundation fabrics.  Whip Cream is perfect for River Valley since it has very subtle hues of green and blue.

I cut all the pieces out and sewed a little on it several days throughout June. Some days it was just 15 minutes a day, but progress was made each time. This past weekend, I finished it up.

For the quilting I wanted a color that would show well on all the different fabrics.  I didn't want white, because that would be too bright on the dark fabrics, and a dark blue thread would be too harsh on the whites and creams, so I went with this beautiful aqua color from Aurifil.  It blended perfect on all the fabrics.

I quilted it using Hobbs Natural Cotton Batting. I had a bag of leftover batting and pulled out a piece that was wide enough, but not long enough, so I pulled out another piece to see if it was wide enough to piece together and low and behold it was the perfect size! No piecing batting together this time. Yay!

And of course I used Schmetz Needles. They never disappoint.

The orignal quilt I made had white edges, but I decided to change that up a bit for this one and went with a printed border.  

Hope you enjoyed this quick quilt.  Be sure to check out all the other Island Batik Ambasadors to see what they have been playing with this month.

Now I need to give Christopher a call,  and let him know he has a new quilt to pick up.

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The Ultimate Home Decor Blog Hop

Welcome to Week 2 Day 2 of the Ultimate Home Decor Blog Hop by Island Batik. 

I was sent a lovely bundle of River Valley designed for Deb Tucker’s Studio 180 Design by Kathy Engle.  It should be hitting shops this month.  Island Batik was very generous to send so much for small home decor projects. That means there is some left over to share, but I'll talk more about that near the end. :)

First up I want to show off these two pillows.  I love the look of Cathedral Windows quilts and knew this was a good way to show off these fabrics. There are lots of tutorials on line about how to make these types if Cathedral Windows and one of my favorites is from Diary of a Quilt Maven called Faux Cathedral Windows Pincushion Tutorial.  The tutorial is for a small pincushion, but it is the same concept if you want to go a little bigger. I like her tutorial because it shows how to use tiny dots of basting glue to hold your white folded triangles down.  It works so well I  skip her step 5 where she says to sew all around the edges of each covered square.  Instead I let the glue do its work and start sewing squares together.

Other than the outer border and the back, the whole project is made from 2.5 inch squares.  My pillow is 6 x 6 squares. For each square I needed two white squares folded in half on the diagonal.  I used the foundation by Island Batik called Whip Cream for this.   I have 36 River Valley blues hiding underneath those 72 white triangles.

Next I laid out all the greens on top.  I glue basted these down as well.  It made it so much easier to roll back the bias edge of the white and machine stitch them down. 

I used Roxanne's Glue Baste It.  It's my favorite.  It dries quick and doesn't bother the needle when sewing.

Since I used the blue squares underneath, when I roll back the white, all the blues peak out.

Here is the back side before I trimmed off the greens and added the back side of the pillow.  I pressed all my seams open.

I got to wondering what the pillow would look like with the green underneath and the blue on top, so I decided why not make another one and see.

These are the blues glued down ready for the green to peak out.

I added a 1 inch border around the block so it would fit perfect around a 14 inch Pillow form.

Here they are, almost twins but not quite.

For my mini quilt scene,  The name River Valley and all the blues and greens in this line had me thinking about birds on the river.

Early this year I bought a 4in x 9in Table Top Tri-Stand from Calla Lilly Quilts in Greensboro, NC.  They had a cute display with several patterns for every season from Quiltricks.com that fit perfect  in the frame.  I went to the Quiltricks website to find a bird pattern for the frame, but they didn't have one yet,  so I drew up my own.

A white bird with green feathers enjoying the river water among the cat tails.

I drew all the shapes and then copied then onto some HeatNBond, pressed that on the fabric, and cut out each shape easily.  Some of the pieces are thin so I couldn't really do a satin stitch around each piece, so I sewed a straight line around them using several different colors of Aurfil Thread for a raw applique.  The only pieces that are not part of the River Valley line are the orange I cut from some other Island Batik scraps and the cat tails.  They cat tails came from leftovers from the Cascadia line.  Doesn't' that brown with blue strips go perfect!

These little mini quilts are the perfect size to use up scrap batting. 
I used Hobbs Natural cotton batting leftover from my Lily Patch Pads quilt.

Now it is time to talk about sharing. 

I have two giveaways to tell you about today.  First, Island Batik is giving away TWO Fat Quarter River Valley Packs,

You can enter on their blog or use the Rafflecopter below.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Second, I am made two charm packs from the leftovers and am giving them away to one of my followers on Instagram. 
Check me out on Instagram on @quilteddelights and look for this photo below to enter.

And be sure to visit  Sandra Walker  to see what she made with River Valley.

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