Welcome back to the Stay At Home Round Robin, an idea from Gail of Quilting Gail and co-hosted by a small group of bloggers. We are now at the second round and it's my turn to choose what to use. And I picked plus signs!
I mentioned last week that I wasn't sure what to do with my piano keys in the corners, so I decided to use the next round as cornerstones instead. Now you can see how that looks. My husband saw it at this stage on a table and asked if the bear was Swiss, though he admitted the colors were wrong. 😀
These plus signs are 3" finished; I'm still trying to keep it from becoming too big. I did decide that it needed a 1" border to give it a little space from the next round.
Are you playing along? Link up your second plus sign border, cornerstones, whatever you decided to use. The linky will be open for one week.
Be sure to check out all the hosts to see what they did with their plus signs, and come back each Monday to see our next round. Have questions about the Stay At Home Round Robin? Gail has answers here.
I am honored and thrilled to announce that I have been selected to be an Island Batik Ambassador for 2021. This will be my third year as an ambassador. I love the challenges, the community of ambassadors, and of course the boxes of fabric! Twice a year, ambassadors are sent boxes absolutely loaded with goodies from Island Batik and their industry partners.
The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, Accuquilt, Aurifil, Hobbs, and Schmetz.
My first shipment was in two boxes that together weighed 32 pounds!! That's 32 pounds of awesomeness. What to see what 32 pounds of awesomeness looks like? Check out the video!
Want a closer look at all the goodies? First, there is a new die from AccuQuilt. I got the Snail's Trails die. This is one of their BOB dies, which stands for Block on Board. You can cut all the pieces needed for the block in one crank of the cutter. Snail's Trails makes an 8" finished block. AccuQuilt also generously sent a 2-pack of 10" mats for cutting.
Aurifil sent an amazing 7 spools of thread! Some are 50 weight and some are 40 weight. I admit to not using the 40 weight much in the past so I'm excited to get more comfortable with it. I'm super excited that one is a variegated thread in shades of green.
Hobbs sent four (yes, 4!) queen sized batts! There is one that's 100% cotton, an 80/20 cotton poly blend, that same blend in black, and poly-down. I haven't use the poly-down before; I do like the loft and definition you get with a polyester batt.
Schmetz sent a little package of goodies with a really nice note. I love their needles, I've been using them since I bought my first sewing machine in 1998. They sent their Chrome needles in a variety of sizes as well as a pocket guide reference, a luggage tag (great one we can travel again!), a notepad, and a microfiber cloth.
And then there's the fabric! Island Batik is incredibly generous to their ambassadors. Here's the shot of all the fabric, with a glimpse of my January project from last year, the sewing machine cover.
This box will cover two Blog Hops that highlight the new collections, Fall & Winter. My fall collection is Lavender Fields, designed by Kathy Engle for Tammy Silvers of Tamarinis. Lavender Fields is a beautiful collection of purples of all shades & values, plus some soft blues and whites. I love it! This will be featured in February. My Winter collection is in the wrapped package and is still a surprise; these will be highlighted in May.
Then there was a precut of 2 1/2" strips of Blinded by Science designed by Jackie Kunkel of Canton Village Quilt Works.
And another precut, this one a "stacker" of 10" squares, of Jewel Quest, designed by Kathy Engle for Nan Baker of Purrfect Spots. I admit, I'm particularly giddy over this one. I just love the bright and deep purples and greens!
In addition to the full collections, there is a Foundations bundle of half yard cuts, 6 yards of the neutral Batter, 4 yards each of black, white, and gray solid, and 2 sets stash builder rolls. And a 2-yard cut of a green rayon. Boy oh boy! Here are more shots of all the fabric together:
I can't wait to show you what I'm making with all these beauties! Thanks to Island Batik, Schmetz, Hobbs, Aurifil, and AccuQuilt!
Carol of Just Let Me Quilt has put together a fantastic blog hop -- Hearts On Fire. The challenge was to create something with a heart, but not red. I knew for sure that I wanted to use some of the fabrics from Island Batik's Tickled Pink collection, but I figured I'd challenge myself to not use the pink fabrics in the collection. I sometimes have difficulty with white-based prints, so I chose 4 of those from the line and paired them with an Island Batik foundation called Cantaloupe.
I used the heart block by Cluck Cluck Sew. This is the 9" finished size in a 4 x 4 layout. I had *just* enough of the cantaloupe background to finish--that last strip is pieces from several smaller pieces, but I made it! The binding is a multi-colored fabric from Tickled Pink. I think it sets off the rest quite nicely.
One of my go-to quilting motifs is wavy lines. These are spaced roughly an inch apart. I like the texture and flow it adds to the quilt. I used Aurifil color 2215 Peach and it matched perfectly with the cantaloupe. Seriously, as if they were the same fruit!
Be sure to check out all the amazing heart projects featured in the Hearts on Fire blog hop!
It's week two and border one of the Stay At Home Round Robin, the mastermind of Gail of Quilting Gail and co-hosted by a small group of bloggers. This week it was up to Chris at Chrisknitssews to choose what we would use for our first border. The choice? Piano Keys!
I decided to have my piano keys be light in the centers and get darker as they moved outward. Since my starting block was 10" square, I used 5 strips total of 2 1/2" strips. These are 3 1/2" long so they are rectangular, like piano keys. My progression wouldn't really work around the corners, though, so I decided that I would use the next round's theme as cornerstones. I don't like quilts that get too big and with 7 rounds of borders, one for each of the hosts, I was worried it might get bigger than I like working with. So in the picture above, the top borders aren't actually sewn in. You'll have to wait until next week to see it completely.
Have you decided to play along? This is a pretty relaxed sew along and the rules are far from rigid, as you can see by the fact that it's week two and I'm already playing with them, bending them a bit :) If you do decide to play along, link up your piano key borders with Chris. And here's the schedule for the future rounds:
Today is the day that the Stay At Home Round Robin starts. Since we're not able to have guild meetings and the like right now, Gail from Quilting Gail has assembled some friends and we're hosting a Stay At Home Round Robin. The idea is that rather than pass your quilt around from quilter to quilter, you make your quilt your way, but we suggest what to add next. Today we're starting with our centers.
I decided to do an applique center and I chose a polar bear. I actually love his outline from the back, too, you can see the satin stitch:
This is a 10" (finished) block. I found a coloring sheet online and used that as the starting point for my outline.
I am using Island Batik fabrics; the bear is Sprinkles and the background is Bluebird, both from foundations. I'll be using mostly leftovers from Island Batik's Glacier View collection from last year and I'll add in extra blues and whites as needed.
Glacier View
Want to play along? Choose a center, it doesn't have to be big. An orphan block would work well with the added bonus that you'd already be done with this step! You can link up with Quilting Gail this week to show off your center. We'll be back each week to suggest the next round of what to add. Here's the schedule:
One of the Island Batik ambassador challenges in 2020 was to make a bag from a By Annie pattern. I had always been rubbish at making bags but I realized I just never found the right patterns. Annie's patterns have a lot of steps but they are very through and make sense to me. I immediately wanted to make another, and I bought the Take a Stand pattern and materials/hardware to make both sizes. I started with the smaller size and used some of my Island Batik fabrics from Lemon Grass. I love it!
I love the dragonfly fabric in the color Marbles. I used in the border of my medallion quilt and saved the rest the bag. I am also in love with the bright fabric used for the strap and binding--the color is French Blue--and I love the Leaf Tendrils in Rain that I used for the lining. The mesh and fold-over elastic are also a By Annie's product and are great to work with. I like that they mean the pockets don't add weight or bulk at the seams.
It took me about three days to make, so this is not a quick project, but I love the results so much! My next one will be the larger size; I think that will replace my current bag for taking along hand sewing projects. This one is a good size for a purse and I will make it again.
This was actually a 2020 finish, I just didn't have time to post it.
Another thing I like about this bag--it stands up and opens wide! See? I'm just so in love with it!
My friend Gail of Quilting Gail started a PhD program in 2018 to motivate herself and others to complete those Projects Half Done. I've participated every year and will attempt PhD #4 in 2021.
I currently have a list of 10 started-but-not-finished projects. I also have a *lot* of fabric. Some of it is earmarked for specific projects that I haven't actually started, some is not, and some is scrap. My overall goal is to get fabric out of tubs, bins, and drawers and into completed projects. A PhD must include at least 12 completed projects. So my goals for my PhD has two parts:
Complete at least 5 projects from my list of unfinished projects
The remaining projects must be from stuff I already own--kits, scraps, planned projects, new projects that use fabric I already own, anything counts as long as I'm using fabric that is already in the house.
Here is my list of the 10 that are started but not finished:
