Polar Bear Plunge Blog Hop

Welcome! Thanks for stopping by on this third day of the Polar Bear Plunge Blog Hop hosted by Joan of Moose Stash Quilting!  I hope you have been enjoying the hop so far and seen some good Polar Bear Plungy inspiration.

I had been itching to make a scrappy double bear paw quilt and this was the prefect hop to do just that.

My inspiration came from the pattern by Material Girlfriends, but I altered it to have more bear paws and less white space and added a couple borders.

I cut up lots of let over blue scraps from my Island Batik collection to make the center of the paws. I picked shades that reminded me of icy cold waters in the arctic.

I used two different Island Batik browns for the claws on the paws and even the borders came from my personal Island Batik Stash. I used up lots of left over Island Batik fabrics for this one.

For the back I picked a snowflake print for the center and then lined it with several different blues to make a striped piece backing.  Again using up the fabric stash for the backs.

The beach was the perfect place to photograph this one.  The colors of the water and the sky that day were perfectly matched.  But don't be fooled it was a cool 50 degrees with water temperatures to match. Not quite freezing, but cold enough for me.

I did not plunge into the water but sure enjoyed watching the dolphins play that day.  They don't seem to mind the colder water temperatures this time of year.

Make sure to not to miss any of the other stops today and check out their fun polar-ific creations.

 

Wednesday Jan 26

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Hazel’s Daughter 

Words & Stitches

Kathleen McMusing

Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!

Quilted Delights  (ME)

Happy Sewing!

=^..^=

@QuiltedDelights
Follow me on Instagram

Island Batik Ambassador for 2022

I am excited to say I am Island Batik Ambassador again this year!

Island Batik Ambassadors already received their first challenge boxes and have gotten busy on the January project.  Check out my video below to see all the lovely fabrics and extras I get to work with during the first half of the year.

The video below gives you a nice close up of the Island Batik fabrics hitting your stores now (or in the next few weeks) and some of the foundations you can get year round.

Special thanks to Aurifil, Hobbs Batting, and Schemtz Needles for sending their materials to help with our projects.

=^..^=

@QuiltedDelights
Follow me on Instagram

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!

=^..^=

@QuiltedDelights
Follow me on Instagram

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.

=^..^=

@QuiltedDelights
Follow me on Instagram

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!

=^..^=

@QuiltedDelights
Follow me on Instagram

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.

=^..^=

@QuiltedDelights
Follow me on Instagram