Magnificent Minis

The February Challenge in the Island Batik Ambassador program was Magnificent Minis, 24" x 24" or smaller. Mine is approximately 12" x 17".

The fabrics, threads and batting used in this project were given to me by Island Batik and their industry partners Aurifil and Hobbs.

The inspiration for my mini comes from the landscape close to where I grew up. From my parents' house we had the view of small islands like the ones in the picture above. Barren islands scrubbed by glaciers thousands of years ago. There is not much more than heather and moss growing there.

I started cutting freehand curves from Island Batik Foundation fabrics that I received last year in the ambassador program. The colors were perfect for mountains, stone, sea and sky.

The smooth curves of these islands make me almost homesick here I live in the outskirts of the town with only the view of a forest.

I decided to make four of these sections and spruce them up with some colors. I pieced together colorful scraps of batiks from the Southern Blooms collection that was used in the May challenge last year. I cut up the sections shown above and added the colorful strips.

The colorful strips are intended to represent the different seasons of the islands. Spring is on top, and winter at the bottom.

Stained glass pictures are always fun, you can see how much snow we have, it is full winter outside. I framed my top with solid black batik.

The quilting was a fun process. Since the landscape fabric doesn't have a lot of colors in themselves, I used almost all my Aurifil stash for adding colors to represent the seasons. Thirteen different Aurifil colors were used for the quilting, in addition to one variegated Sulky thread for the Fall section. There were a lot of thread ends to bury!

Most of the quilting is free motion, but the walking foot was also used.

Hobbs Thermore batting were used in the quilt sandwich.

The completed mini in all it's glory.

The Spring section is quilted with lighter spring colors. Summer has more intense colors. Fall is showing off the rich, golden tones.

In the Winter section at the bottom there is a thin layer of white snow quilted at the top of the island, in addition to a thin layer of ice in the innermost bay. There is never a lot of snow there in real life, the temperatures are hardly below freezing in the winter.

The binding is Check It Out in light blue. I added hanging pockets on the back.

An outdoor picture  in the freezing temperatures.

 Finally, my mini flat on the snow. I am longing for spring!