Motorbikes and Cars Quilt

This summer I haven't yet had a lot of time to make quilts, since a big house maintenance project has occupied most of my hours. But, I have been able to do a little bit, like completing this charity quilt for the hospital.

The starting point was some leftover fabrics with car and motorcycle motifs used in this quilt from last year. I made a simple swirl block with Britten Nummer from Ikea as the background, and solid blue blocks in between to make it a boyish quilt.

I quilted a FMQ Dogwood pattern all over the quilt, with a light blue thread. Binding is the blue solid, and is attached by machine to be durable.

Finished size for this charity quilt is 39" x 47" after quilting. This is my fifth charity quilt for the year, and 34th all time for the children's ward at the hospital.

Try It! With Island Batik

June's challenge in the Island Batik Ambassador program was to try a technique that we hadn't done before.

Last year I got very inspired by a mini quilt by Twiggy and Opal , using both fabric weaving and a piping-like piece in the quilt.

There are always leftovers and scraps from making quilts, and I tend to keep all usable pieces. Here is the colorful bundle of  batik scraps from the Southern Blooms collection that I used in a quilt made last year. It is perfect for June's challenge.

Note:  All products in this post were given to me by Island Batik as part of their Ambassador program.

I cut batik strips 1/2" wide and fed them through the bias tape maker. The strips were pressed well for the weaving.

Strips of 1/4" width are then carefully weaved together, I made one warm and one cool palette .

I used interfacing to keep the woven pieces together before incorporating them into the quilt.

Then there was the piping-like part. With all the gorgeous scraps from the Southern Blooms collection I decided to make a rainbow-like gradation. One inch strips of colored batiks are pressed in half and sewn in between white batik strips.

I used Aurifil 50wt in white #2024 for the piecing.

Here are all the strips sewn together, and the fabric weave pieces ready with interfacing.

Then I cut the gradation strip set in two and arranged the pieces into a pleasing design. As you can see, pressing of the colored strips gives life to the quilt.

The top is finished and I want to stroke the beautiful colored strips all the time! The woven pieces are approximately 2 1/4" square. each.

The backside a gorgeous display of colors against the solid white batik!

I kept the quilting simple, machine quilted with Aurifil 50wt in white #2024, and as a final touch I hand quilted two stripes of Aurifil 12wt blue #2815 and green #2890 on the right hand side, and last but not least a cross stitch row in Aurifil 12wt pink #2479 on top.

Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Bleached Cotton Batting was used in the quilt sandwich.

The binding is a neutral batik called Sprinkles.

The quilting shows off best on the backside. Hanging pockets are made, and this quilt will definitely brighten up my sewing room! Then I can pet it every day!

The finished mini is 12 1/2" x 15 1/2".

Low sun rays makes a dramatic effect on the quilt.

This concludes my June challenge; I didn't only try one new technique to me, but actually two! Fabric weaving with tiny strips and incorporating piping-like piecing in a quilt is now a part of my experience, and I wouldn't be surprised if there will be more of this in the future, because this was fun!