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!

May's Charity Quilt

 Here's a small charity quilt I made from a charm pack I have had for a while. I added some solid squares to make a good sized quilt, and finally added a 5" frame around it. The resulting quilt is approximately 40" x 50", and it gives a summery feeling.

This is my fourth charity quilt for the year, and 33rd all time for the children's ward at the hospital.

Blue Pillows

I took a little break from quilting and made these two pillows for my son's couch. They will brighten up the dark grey fabric on the sofa, but still keep a masculine feel.

The pillow forms are 20", but the fabric is cut smaller to get "stuffy" pillows.

Make It Modern with Hobbs

The May challenge in the Island Batik Ambassador program was to create a modern quilt using any of the provided Hobbs batting. Here's my solution to the challenge.

Must incorporate one of the characteristics of modern quilts as defined by the Modern Quilt Guild (the use of bold colors and prints, high contrast and graphic areas of solid color, improvisational piecing, Minimalism, expansive negative space, alternate grid work)

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

When designing a quilt I always sit down with pencil and paper and make a sketch. Sometimes the the sketch is quickly discarded and I start looking for ideas from other designers, but not this time. This is completely my own design!

I decided to make a grid/lattice using grey and black solid batiks, with white solid as background. Batik foundations in cold colors fill in the squares.

My original idea was to use only grey in the vertical lattice, but that didn't give enough contrast, so I added a black stripe to make it more distinct.

I decided to bind the quilt with white solid, adding a light blue strip of Check it Out in the lower right corner for interest.

The quilt is 38" x 54", a good crib size, and fits perfectly in this playground! I like the way the lattice weaves its way on top of the colored squares.

Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Bleached Cotton Batting was used in the quilt sandwich. The quilt is pieced with Aurifil 50wt white #2024, and quilted with a variety of matching Aurifil 40wt and 50wt threads in an uneven organic grid.

All the previous pictures are somewhat cold, just like the colors of the quilt.
I needed a little more color in the last picture, the green leaves of the birches have not come out as far as they should according to the calendar, we still have frost nights. Maybe that's what I get when making a modern "winter quilt" in May?!

April Challenge - Ready, Set, Go!

The Island Batik Ambassadors were given an Accuquilt Ready, Set, GO! package this year as part of an industry partnership with Island Batik. For the April challenge we were asked to use the Go! cutter and the included 8" Cube to make a baby quilt.

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

Looking through the Eleanor Burns book I decided to make a modified  Road to Oklahoma pattern using these two dies. The resulting blocks from these dies are 2" finished, square and HST , respectively.

I love making scrappy quilts, so I decided to use leftovers from earlier Island Batik project, Paisley Dot Brights, as the main fabric.

The cutting of blocks goes very fast with this system, six layers of fabric at a time. I had enough of the dark and light blue for the star blocks, and the rest of the Paisley Dot Brights were use to make the colorful four patch blocks. In addition I used stash builder rolls for the inside of the stars.

The neutral Milk Shake was used for the background.

 The quilt top consists of a total of 504 pieces, and here they are all together. I assembled a few of the HSTs before this picture was taken, and it was great not having to deal with the dog ears!

Here are the two different blocks the quilt is made from. The colors are yummy!

The quilt top is a real color explosion!

For the quilting I used the walking foot and made a meandering cross hatch design. It really compliments the stars and four patch design and gives life to the quilt. Aurifil 40wt in a silver color (#2600) was used for the qulting, with Aurifil 50wt #2024 in the bobbin.

Hobbs Cotton Batting was used in the quilt, and it gives a nice loft.

The resulting size of the quilt is 40" square. Grey Island Batik solid was used for the binding.

The fun backing adds extra life to the quilt, this really is a Color Explosion quilt!