Circular – May Make it Modern project

Posted on May 30, 2019 by StoriedQuilts

Circular is my May project for the Island Batik Ambassador program. The theme for May is Make it Modern. Modern is just the thing for me. I love the free-form, unconstrained design aesthetic of modern quilts. I had several ideas for May but this simple design won out.

The fabric for this quilt was provided by Island Batik and the batting was provided by Hobbs Batting as part of the Island Batik Ambassador program.

I’m glad May has 31 days. This was a very busy month for me. This is the only sewing project I was able to work on, and the only blog post for the month. The piecing and quilting was completed a couple of weeks ago but it has taken me a while to get pictures and write up this blog post. It still needs a hanging sleeve and a binding, which will be done this week.

For this project, I wanted something with simple piecing so I can spend some more time quilting. I picked out a few squares of turquoise and orange Island Batik fabric and backed them with fusible web. I cut out concentric quarter circles of different sizes. Then, I mixed up the pieces, fused them on to background squares and used a blanket stitch to sew them in place. I tried many interesting layouts for the squares but in the end, I decided on a somewhat symmetrical setting similar to a New York Beauty quilt.

In my Island Batik ambassador box, there were several rolls of batting from Hobbs. Most were Hobbs 80/20 blends that are my usual choices for baby, throw and bed quilts. There was a new kind of batting (new to me) called Thermore. I used a bit of it in my February mini project.It is very thin but I love how well the quilting shows with it. The quilting lines have very good definition. I wanted to use Thermore for this quilt as well. In addition, I also used a Hobbs 80/20 batting. I believe using two layers of batting makes the quilting stand out.

For the quilting, I wanted to try something new. The main quilting theme is closely spaced vertical lines along the length of the quilt. The lines are broken up by the turquoise and orange circles as well as islands of heavy free-motion quilting. I marked circles and squares using a Hera marker at random locations. Some of them touch and overlap, and others stand on their own. In each quilting island, I used a different design/motif – McTavishing, feathers, spirals, pebbles, wish-bones, horizontal lines and a combination of them all. It was very hard to stitch in the ditch around the circles on my long-arm because these circles are quite large and I didn’t have a ruler to help me draw a good circle.

**Before**: **The bottom right quadrant is quilted along the edges of the curves. The other quadrants are not.**

**After: All four quadrants are quilted along the edges of the curves. Looks much better and less floppy.**

I took the quilt off the frame and quilted the outlines of the circles using a walking foot on my domestic. See the before and after pictures above – what a difference it makes!

Details:
Size: 44″ x 52″
Fabric: Assorted Island Batik squares in Turquoise and Orange
Background: Island Batik solid grey fabric
Batting: Hobb’s Thermore and Hobb’s 80/20 cotton/polyester blend.

Here’s a list of all the 2019 Ambassadors. Checkout their awesome May projects:

Carolina Asmussen ~Carolina Asmussen

Gene Black ~ Gene Black

Pamela Boatright ~ PamelaQuilts

Connie K Campbell ~ Freemotion by the River

Anja Clyke ~ Anja Quilts

Tina Dillard ~ Quilting Affection Designs

Becca Fenstermaker ~ Pretty Piney

Jennifer Fulton ~ Inquiring Quilter

Barbara Gaddy ~ Bejeweled Quilts by Barb

Dione Gardner-Stephen ~ Clever Chameleon

Sarah Goer ~ Sarah Goer Quilts

Vasudha Govindan ~ Storied Quilts

Lori Haase ~ Dakota City Quilter II

Joanne Hart ~ Unicornharts

Mania (Magdalini) Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for Quilts

Carla Henton ~ Creatin’ in the Sticks

Stephanie Jacobson ~ Steph Jacobson Designs

Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs

Joan Kawano ~ Moosestash Quilting

Kim Lapacek ~ Persimon Dreams

Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood

Leanne Parsons ~ Devoted Quilter

Bea Lee ~ BeaQuilter

Toby Lischko ~ Gateway Quilts & Stuff

Bill Locke ~ Studio Bill Locke

Denise Looney ~ For the Love of Geese

Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights

Sally Manke ~ Sally Manke

Maryellen McAuliffe ~ Mary Mack’s Blog

Kathleen McCormick ~ Kathleen McMusing

Carol Moellers ~ Carol Moellers Designs

Karen Neary ~ Sew Karen-ly Created

Lisa Nielsen ~ Lisa Lisa and the Quilt Jam

Jackie O’Brien ~ If These Threads Could Talk

Laura Piland ~ Slice of Pi Quilts

Michelle Roberts ~ Creative Blonde

Vicki Schlimmer ~ Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting

Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail

Sherry Shish ~ Powered by Quilting

Anita Skjellanger ~ Quilt in a not-Shell

Laticia “Tish” Stemple ~ Tish’s Adventures in Wonderland

Jennifer Strauser ~ Dizzy Quilter

Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations

Terri Vanden Bosch ~ Lizard Creek Quilts

Alison Vermilya ~ Little Bunny Quilts

Sandra Walker ~ mmm! quilts

Suzy Webster ~ Adventurous Applique and Quilting

(Debora) Anne Wiens ~ Seams like a Plan

Geraldine Wilkins ~ Living Water Quilter

Janet Yamamoto ~ Whispers of Yore

Linking to these linky parties:
Put your foot down – a new link-up at fortheloveofgeese.com
Needle and Thread Thursday
Friday Foto fun
Freemotion Maveriks
WhoopWhoop
TGIFF
May monthly @ MeadowMist

Hopscotch tiles – April OMG

Posted on April 27, 2019 by StoriedQuilts

April was a busy month for me quilting-wise. The first finish was April Flowers – an adorable baby quilt for the Island Batik April challenge. The second was Diamond Showers for the Be a Diamond blog-hop. April flowers was easy and quick. Diamond Showers was not. I’m proud I stuck to it and finished them both.

My April One Monthly Goal (OMG) was to finish piecing a UFO from over two years ago. This quilt is based on the Summer in the Park tutorial from the MSQC.

I used assorted strips of green from my stash. I inherited some of them from my aunt who got them from a consignment store she volunteers at. See story in Storied Dresden. I had cut some of the strips probably 4 years ago to make a scrappy lone star quilt like the one in Burnt Orange. The greens didn’t quite sing together, so that plan was shelved. I brought them out a couple of years later and thought they looked better with whites on both sides rather than bunched together. In addition to greens and whites, I used an orange floral print to give it a more garden/park feel. With the blocks done, piecing the top took just a couple of hours.

Top is done. Quilting to follow. May will be a busy month, so I don’t think I can get to it till early June. Linking to OMG hosted by Patty at Elm Street Quilts.
Also linking to UFO busting @ Tish’s

Diamond Showers

Posted on April 23, 2019 by StoriedQuilts

Today is my turn in the Be a Diamond Blog hop hosted by Carol at Just Let Me Quilt. My quilt is called diamond showers. It is my original pattern. It started out as a elaborately planned paper-pieced pattern but turned into imrpov paper-pieced as it progressed.

I am really proud of the pattern and the way I designed it. I will post a design tutorial on how to design your own large-scale paper-pieced patterns.

**Dresden plate before chopping off a section on the right. Checkout the huge carpenters’ compass. It lets me draw a circle up to 20″ radius.**

The pattern is designed as blades/wedges of a Dresden plate. The diamonds are part of the blades. The blades are 18 degrees – needs 20 to complete a circle. Each blade has 4 or 5 diamonds and no two blades are the same. I randomly picked some diamonds to be the same color as the background. This gives the appearance of diamonds floating or showering down from above. Once the plate was assembled, I did not want the full circle – I chopped off about 5 inches on one side before appliqueing it to the background fabric.

**My quilting machine is a 15″ BlockRockIt – which is the same as a Grace Q’nique. 15″ is not much to work with but I find it better than quilting on a domestic.**

As you can see, I went completely crazy with the free-motion quilting. I used a ruler to just outline the diamonds – no quilting at all inside the diamonds. The background is heavily quilted using whatever motif came to mind. I quilted this on Sunday in a single session of about 4 hours. I still need to add a hanging sleeve and a binding, but I had to get pictures before the sun went down.

**Chain of swirls runs along the length of the quilt.**

**Some seedpods and feathers. The blue in this picture is heavily distorted.**

**More feathers and some McTavishing and a funky wheel.**

**More feathers, a peacock, some pebbles and rocks. An attempt at matchstick quilting.**

**This photo shows off the texture of the quilting.**

The details:
Diamond Showers
Size: 42″ X 56″
Background: Kona cotton Regal
(It is a deep, dark blue-purple. The colors are fairly accurate in the long shots. The color in the close-ups are heavily distorted.)
Diamonds: Alison Glass Sunprints 2018 and 2019
Quilting: freemotion
Thread: Aurifil 50 wt Mako Cotton #2745 (midnight)

Please visit all the other quilters on this awesome blog-hop:

April 22
Needled Mom
Keepsake Moments
Kathy’s Quilts
Kathy’s Kwilts and More
Color, Creating, and Quilting
April 23
Ms P Designs USA
Vroomans Quilts
Marjorie’s Busy Corner
Melva Loves Scraps
Storied Quilts
Words & Stitches
Clever Chameleon Quilting
Songbird Designs
April 24
MooseStashQuilting
Beaquilter
Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting
Creative Blonde
Selina Quilts
Bumbleberry Stitches
Two Maker Chicks
Quilts By Joanne
April 25
Patchouli Moon Studio
Elizabeth Coughlin Designs
Hill Valley Quilter Mageez Room
Websterquilt
High Road Quilter
Seams To Be Sew
April 26
Creatin’ in the Sticks
Cynthia’s Creating Ark
Days Filled With Joy
For The Love Of Geese
Quilt Fabrication
Stitchin At Home
Just Let Me Quilt

Linkups:
Colour Tuesday
Bee Social
Midweek Makers
Wednesday Weight loss
Needle and Thread Thursday
TGIFF @ Alycia Quilts
Whoop Whoop Friday
Friday Foto fun
Finished or not Friday
Freemotion Mavericks
Favorite Finish monthly @ MeadowMist

April Flowers

Posted on April 16, 2019 by StoriedQuilts

April flowers is my baby quilt project for April Island Batik Ambassador challenge. The challenge was to make a square baby quilt using the AccuQuilt Go. The fabric for this quilt was provided by Island Batik and the batting by Hobbs Batting. As part of the Island Batik Ambassador program, we also received an AccuQuilt Ready Set Go cutter and dies.

A cutting system for fabric was not something I was considering at this time. As soon as I got this though, I pulled out a pile of medium-sized blue scraps and cut them into 2.5″ strips. It was like magic – my odd sized scraps were instantly transformed into a jelly roll worth of strips. These strips are part of a project-in-progress but that is for another blog post.

For this project, I decided to make a block from the book that accompanied the Accuquilt system. It is by Eleanor Burns and has patterns for several classic 8″ blocks along with instructions on which die to use and how big to cut the strips, etc. I picked the flower basket block – a classic block that I’ve never made before because is has numerous and small half-square triangles. With AccuQuilt, the HSTs were a breeze. I cut a zillion 2.5″ HSTs, 2.5″ squares and 4.5″ HSTs in 20 minutes. It took me longer to gather and clip the pieces for a block. Using AccuQuilt for projects with several identical pieces is a great time-saver. Next time, I will place the pieces that make a HST – the pinks and the background in this project – right sides together before on the die. They go through the cutter together and I can just pick them up and sew. No extra time for matching the pieces.

I used several bright pinks for the flowers, greens for the basket and the Island Batik solid white for the background. The solid white is the same high-thread count batik fabric but it is just white. I used a bleached Hobb’s 80/20 cotton batting that came in my box. The bleached batting retained the bright white of the background.

**I quilted an all-over daisy meander in the white space.**

I know a lot of you in the northern parts of the Northern hemisphere have had severe weather this past week and even snow storms in April. Here in Houston, TX, we’ve had several weeks of spring already. It was an unusually mild winter with just a few hours of below freezing temperatures. This is very unusual even for Houston. My eggplants and peppers from last year did not die out and have already started blooming and bearing fruit. My Peggy Martin roses, amaryllis and impatiens are blooming. Peaches are done blooming and have tiny fruits. Orange blossoms and baby lemons aplenty on the citrus trees. Enjoying the lovely spring weather and the flowers and their fragrance but dreading the summer heat just around the corner.