Get on Board Blog Hop

 

September is National Sewing Month, which you can read all about here: 

https://www.nationalsewingmonth.org/

and Melva from Melva Loves Scraps and Brenda from Songbird Designs have been hosting the Get on Board Blog Hop to celebrate!  They are also sponsoring a giveaway which you can read about at the end of the post.

I have been sewing since I was in middle school.  My mom taught me how to use the machine and I made a few clothing items at home and in my home economics class in high school, but I didn't really get into till after I got married and started making clothes and costumes for my kids.  I don't make very much clothing anymore, instead I spend most of my time making quilts!  I am addicted to them, but every now and then I throw in a fun small project, such as this fun sea turtle!

The theme for this hop was anything tropical that inspired sewing so I went with this fun sea turtle pincushion and thread catcher.  I love seas turtles and get super excited whenever I see one. I was lucky enough to see one just this Saturday! 

It was a big one swimming a few yards away from the end of the pier and it came up several times for us to get a good look at it!

The pattern is by Jennifer Jangles and this hop was the perfect time to put this project at the top of my to do list.

The pattern has nice color photos and gives instructions to either attach the thread catcher permanently or make it removable. I hand stitched mine down. I have been needing a thread catcher to sit on my longarm and this cute little sea turtle will be the perfect thread catcher guardian.

The pattern calls for 1/4 yard of two different prints, but if you do some creative cutting you can get every piece from two Island Batik Stash Builder strips. Stash Builder strips are are 5 inches tall by 42 ish inches long.

I used a blue and green five inch strip I had on hand and they worked out perfectly.

The outer shell pattern piece says to place on the fold, but to make it fit on the 5 inch strip I cut two separate pieces and added a 1/4 seam allowance on the end. Then sewed it together to make one piece. 

I pressed the seams open so it wouldn't be bulky and you can barely see the seam in the finished turtle.

Two tiny black buttons make perfect eyes.

Below is the list of other Blog hoppers. Make sure to check them all out!

And make sure to enter the raffle copter giveaway hosted by Brenda and Melva. They are giving away lots of goodies to one lucky winner!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thursday, September 1

Anorina – Samelia’s Mum

Denise – For the Love of Geese

Cheree – The Morning Latte

Brenda – Songbird Designs (that’s me!!)

Friday, September 2

Karen – Karen’s Korner 

Nancy – Grace and Peace Quilting

Sharon & Susan – Ms P Designs USA

Nina-Marie – Creations – Quilts, Art, Whatever

Monday, September 5

Karrin – Karrin’s Crazy World

Linda – Texas Quilt Gal

Yvonne – Quilting Jetgirl

Emily – The Darling Dogwood

Tuesday, September 6

Gail – Quilting Gail

Joy – Days Filled with Joy

Melisa – Pinker ‘n’ Punkin Quilting & Stitching

Carol – Quilt Schmilt     

Wednesday, September 7

Melva – Melva Loves Scraps

Tammy – Tamarinis

Leah – Quilted Delights (me)

Patricia – Faith, Trust & Breast Cancer

Happy Sewing!

=^..^=

@QuiltedDelights

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Island Batik Marvelous Mini

 

 Is it Christmas yet?  🎄 

It's getting pretty close! The last four months of the year always go so fast. But this year I'm ready! I already have a new Christmas quilt for the season and now I have a nice mini quilt to go with it.

This month Island Batik Ambassadors were challenged to create a Marvelous Mini Quilt. Mini quilts are marvelous for many reasons:

They make great decorations, they can be used to test hard blocks, they are small enough to practice different Quilting motifs, and they help use up the last bit of scraps from another project.

(I'm loving this new wool pressing mat from Prairie Spirit Alpacas)

For my mini quilt I decided to use up the left over Winter Wonders scraps from my New York Beauty project from June. You can find this fabric line in stores now.

These Christmasy fabrics by Kathy Engle are right up my alley and I had just enough to make a small lonestar.

I still had a little more fabric left over so I decided to add some triangles and borders as well. The size of each shape was determined by how much fabric I had left.  This really was a design as you go project. 

I even had the perfect sized scrap of Hobbs Heirloom Premium cotton batting for the middle.

For the quilting I used some red, green, and yellow thread from Aurifil and used a Schmetz Microtex Chrome needle.  They play together perfectly.

I did some simple custom quilting in each section.

This Marvelous Mini measures approximately 23 x 23 inches. 

Are you following along with all the other Island Batik Ambassadors?

Follow this link to check them out:

2022 Island Batik Ambassadors 

Happy Sewing!

=^..^=

@QuiltedDelights

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See Ya Later, Alligator Blog Hop

 Its been a great week so far of quilty travel ideas for the "See ya later, Alligator Blog Hop" and today is my turn to show off my projects.  We were supposed to create something inspired by travel for the hop.  Anything from places to go, to how you get there, and anything in between.

Well I was inspired by anything in between.  Let me explain how it relates....

Today is my husband's 50th birthday and we traveled to Raleigh, NC for his big 50th birthday party.  His parents will be there, along with five of his siblings and all five of his adult children.  

It's a mini family reunion!  That is definitely something to travel for.

In the past I have given away quilts to some of  my husband's siblings on their 50th birthdays so a quilt for my husband on his 50th birthday only seemed right, but the more I thought about it, the more I started thinking like a hobbit.  

After all this was a big birthday party, and people were coming from all over....

Plus my husband has always been a giver and he would rather give than to receive...

So instead of  making a quilt for my husband, I decided to make 8 jelly roll race quilts for my husband to give away to the families that traveled so far to see him on his 50th birthday.  

Making these quilts for him to give to his family is a way better gift for him than having him open up only one for himself.

When this idea came to me I only had a couple months before the party so I had to use a pattern I could sew up pretty quick.

 I also wanted the quilts to be extra special and have some meaning behind them, after all it's not everyday someone turns 50.

So I cut out 50 strips for each quilt. 

Also each quilt, from front to back, has 50 different blue prints, my husband's favorite color. 

Each family now has a special quilt to take back home with them to always remember the fun we had together during my my husband's 50th birthday party!

Make sure to click on the links below to be taken to all the other hoppers showing off what inspired them for this hop!

Monday, August 22nd

Just Let Me Quilt

Days Filled With Joy

Samelia's Mum

Karen's Korner

Quilt Schmilt

Beckys Adventures in Quilting and Travel 

Tuesday, August 23rd

MooseStashQuilting

Quilt Doodle Designs

Quilting Gail

Just Sew Quilter

Lianne Makes Stuff

Homespun Hannah's Blog

Wednesday, August 24th

Inflorescence

Karrin's Crazy World

Ms P Designs USA

Allthingzsewn

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Words & Stitches

Thursday, August 25th

Creatin' in the Sticks

Quilted Delights

Food For Thought

Scrapdash.com

DayBrook Designs 

Just Because Quilts

Happy Sewing!

=^..^=

@QuiltedDelights

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Accuquilt Tree of Life and Island Batik

 
This month Island Batik Ambassadors were asked to create a project using the Tree of Life die by Accuquilt and then gift the project to someone in need of joy this month.

AccuQuilt’s mission is to bring joy to everyone – especially when they need it. That is why, this month, we were encouraged to make Christmas come early for someone who could use a little joy.

We were all sent the die in our second ambassador box of goodies. This die is one of Accuquilt's Block on Board dies (BOB) in which you can cut out all the shapes for the block with one pass through the cutter.

There are a lot of pieces in this one so at first I was going make a pillow, but the pieces cut out so fast and sewed together so nicely I decided to cut out a few more blocks along with some extra half Square triangles for the corners.

I used mostly Island Batik Foundation Prints in this one.  The white is part of their neutral foundations and is called Sprinkles.  The dark blue is called Navy.  The lighter blue is called Dots - French Blue.

I ran out of the darker blue for the final border so I took a swatch of the Navy fabric and pulled out a piece that matched from my personal Island Batik stash. This one happened to have bear paws it. Perfect for these Winter Trees. I could call this quilt Bear prints in the woods.

This was pieced together and quilted with Schmetz microtex needles.
They always work so nice with Island Batik fabrics

.

I am loving this new pressing mat sent by Prairie Spirit Alpacas.  It fits perfect on my mini iron station. It makes quilting quicker when I can press the smaller pieces right by the machine.

I did some free motion custom quilting on this one.
Continuous Curves
Feathers in the borders
and swirls in the center dark blue.

Hobbs Batting is inside this beauty.
I used their premium cotton batting.

For the back I pulled some snowflake fabrics from my personal Island Batik stash that went well with the colors on the front. The quilt measures approximately 52 inch square and will be going to a dear friend who has had a rough month.

Happy Sewing!

=^..^=

@QuiltedDelights

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