Circular – May Make it Modern project

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

April Flowers

“April Flowers” with a Peggy Martin rose bush.

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.

Some baskets got straight lines

Some baskets got wavy lines.

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.

Linkups:
Color Inspiration
Let’s Bee Social
Midweek Makers
Wednesday Weight loss
Needle & Thread Thursday
Finished or not Friday
TGIFF
Whoop Whoop Friday
Friday Foto Fun
Freemotion Mavericks

Q2 2019 Finish-a-long

I’m finally throwing my hat into the finish-a-along wagon. Finish-a-long (FAL) is a link up hosted by a community of quilt bloggers where a quilter makes a list of projects that she/he plans to finish that quarter and links up the list on one of the FAL hosts’ linky party.

1. Baby quilt for the April Island Batik challenge. Top is almost done. Needs to be quilted and bound.

2. Be a Diamond blog hop quilt. Construction is in progress. I hope to be done by April 21st! If I can’t get it quilted, I will blog with just the top. I will follow this up with a design process tutorial/post in May. I designed using a combination of EQ8, hand drawn templates and a programming language called Processing. Alison Glass SunPrints 2018 and 2019 on Kona Regal.

3. Complete the Summer in the Park quilt top. May be able to quilt in June? This is a 2+ year UFO.

4. Island Batik May challenge should be a modern quilt. I am planning to do a light, medium, dark 3D illusion quilt and try some heavy quilting.

5. This is currently hanging over the stairs near the kitchen. The pattern is 54-40 or fight. I made this maybe 3 or 4 years ago – before FMQ. I want to take it down and give it some more FMQ to enhance the curve illusion.

6. The Island Batik challenge for June is try a new technique. I’m planning to make two Cathedral window cushion covers using this YouTube tutorial from Missouri Star Quilts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akKU0zg-qaw . I’ve never made the faux curve before. It will be a new pattern and a new technique for me. The cushions will go on our living room sofa.

7. Quilt the Bali sunrise. Not sure if I will even get this far in the list…

8. Finish the top for the Modern Plus Sign QAL. I worked on this quite a bit last month and I think I can wrap it up in just a couple of days but ……

Finish-A-Long hosts:

• Sandra – Sew of Course – Ireland
• Marci – Marci Girl Designs – USA Louisiana
• Leanne – She Can Quilt – Canada
• Ella – Throw a Wench in the Works – USA Georgia
• Karen – Capitola Quilter – USA California
• Lynne – Tinking Along – USA Maryland
• Izzy – Dizzy Quilts – Canada
• Sarah G – Sarah Goer Quilts – USA California
• Sarah Z – Cedar Fork Stitches – USA Montana
• Julie – That’s Sew Julie – USA Iowa
• Sharla – Thistle Thicket Studio – USA Kansas
• Nicole – Handwrought Quilts – Canada

Bali Sunrise plus Anniversary Giveaway

The Island Batik challenge for March is Vintage Reimagined. We are to take a vintage quilt or quilt block and “re-imagine” it using Island Batik fabric. I picked a traditional favorite, the log cabin quilt block. Rather than making a quilt with several blocks, the entire quilt is a single giant log cabin on point. The fabric for this quilt was provided to me by Island Batik as part of the Island Batik Ambassador program.

The inspiration for this quilt was this awesome picture of sunset in Bali, Indonesia, taken by my friend, Rupa. Rupa took this picture of flaming skies in Lembongan island. She says this is what the sky looking like. No filters used.

I worked with a strip set called Soul Song from Island Batik, along with some other blues, teals and oranges and yellows. I laid out the reds, oranges and yellows on one side and the blues, teals and turquoises on the other.

This quilt top took a long time to complete – longer than I expected. This log cabin was essentially a single block – so no chain piecing which usually keeps things moving faster. Also, as the quilt got bigger, I had to haul the entire 4800 sq in of it through the sewing machine. I was glad when it was all done. I was planning on quilting it before the end of the month but I don’t have time for that now. The quilt measures about 64″ X 84″.

I call this quilt Bali Sunrise after the inspiration picture. I think sunrise sounds better than sunset – it sounds like you got off the bed and went somewhere really early in the morning to see a spectacular sunrise!

Blogiversary: My first post for this blog was on March 27th 2017 – exactly 2 years ago!. It has no more than 22 views to date and has just one comment – from Sandra of mmm! Quilts. (Love you, Sandra!) I had never heard of linky parties and so the post was published but not advertised. Only a handful of people – family and friends – read it after I sent them a link. Sandra tracked me down after I commented on one of her blog posts 🙂 I’ve come a long way since that first post. The best part of this journey has been meeting so many warm, friendly, funny, talented quilters in blog-land. I have also joined the Houston Modern Quilt Guild, and met some wonderful and passionate quilters in real life. Being an Island Batik ambassador has been too good. I get fabric, thread, batting and an AccuQuilt, and all I need to do it design and make quilts and blog about them. I call this a win-win-win! My goal for next year is to take some time to document my ideas and patterns, and to pitch them to quilt magazines, websites for publication.

To celebrate my blog anniversary, and my first year as an Island Batik ambassador, I’m hosting a small giveaway. One lucky winner will get ten 5″ wide strips of vibrant Island Batik fabric and one half yard cut of an off-white fabric (also Island Batik). You get one entry for each of the following actions:
1. Leave a comment on this blog post.
2. Visit any of my other blog posts and leave a comment.
3. Follow me on WordPress or Bloglovin or Instagram (storiedquilts314)
This is entirely informal. I will count up the entries and ask my son to pick a random number within the range. The giveaway will stay open till midnight of April 2nd. I will email the winner on the 3rd to get their mailing address. I live in the US but will be happy to mail the goodies anywhere in the world.

Linking to all the usual linky parties this week:
Midweek Makers
Let’s Bee Social
Wednesday Weight Loss
Needle & Thread Thursday
Finished or Not Friday
Whoop Whoop Fridays
Friday Foto Fun
TGIFF