This month Island Batik Ambassadors worked with the North Carolina Star die sent to us by Accuquilt to create anything they wanted. All we had to do was use any part of the block in our project.
It was suggested to also use fall colors for our project.
I chose the reds, yellows, and oranges of falling leaves.
Most of these are Island Batik Blenders and Basics given to my in my Ambassador boxes, a couple of the prints are from older lines from my personal Island Batik stash.
Colors are Boonky approved.
I really love the Accuquilt dies for odd shapes, and this block has lots of odd shaped triangles.
With the die I can cut them out perfectly every time and when sewing, everything lines up and fits together perfect. Sewing with accurately cut pieces saves a lot of time and avoids having fudge wonky sewn pieces together.
I stuck with most of the original shapes for this block, but changed the coloring of the pieces to avoid having the rectangle in the block. I used EQ8 to help me with the layout. This center block looks more like an Ohio Star. I love Ohio Stars.
Boonky falling asleep on the job again.
Again, I love the accuquilt for cutting triangles. They are always sew up so straight. When I cut them with my rulers I always have some the are either too wide or too skinny at the top and end up fudging some pieces together. With the die they sew up perfect every time.
Boonky trying a new position for inspecting my work.
Another napping break. It's a wonder I got this project finished in time with all this napping.
Hmm, this look says it's not time to get up yet.
The corner pieces on these square sections were the only altered shape of the block. This piece was supposed to be one solid piece of fabric, but when I put four blocks together it, I didn't like the look of one big plain block next to all the smaller pieces, so with the help of EQ8 I spilt that part into three sections. These were done with paper piecing.
I made twelve blocks.
And sashed them with some stretched out diamonds. These were paper pieced as well.
Boonky is back on the job.
Assembly line trimming is the way to go when you have this many pieces to trim. I had 31 sashing pieces.
The cornerstones were paper pieced economy blocks.
They finished at 2.25 inches. I had 20 of these.
I trimmed these in an assembly line as well. They look liked flower pods to me with the papers folded back for trimming the seam allowance.
There were lots of pieces in this quilt from the blocks to the sashing. When it was finally ready for quilting, my newest quilt inspector had a good time helping me load the quilt on the frame.
I pieced and quilted everything with Schemetz microtex needles. I like the 80/12 size.
I sewed together two left over pieces of Hobbs Heirloom Natural Cotton Batting. This batting is so soft, it's one of my favorites! It quilted up nice and smooth.
I was going to quilt an all over meandering leaf, but my leaves ended up looking more like fire and heat waves, so I went with that. I don't know if I captured the essence of fall or the heat of the summer with this quilt, but either way I love how bright it is and I enjoyed sewing all these pieces together.
The quilt measures approximately 56 x 70.
We don't have many leaves changing colors yet in my part of town, but the weather is starting to cool down.
Happy Sewing!
