Buffalo Moon--An Island Batik Challenge

June's challenge for Island Batik is a Free Theme, or Ambassador's Choice.  I found this actually made it harder!  So many choices!  I waffled between many choices but in the end, chose a project I had planned for later in the year. This November will be my mom's 70th birthday.  We (my brother and I) have planned a trip to see her for more than a year.  Unfortunately, Covid-19 means that trip will not happen--neither of us can get to my mom without an airplane or a multi-day drive and that's not really an option right now.  But at least the birthday quilt is now ready!

When I made my Mountain Cabin quilt with the Catching Dreams collection designed by Kathy Engle for Kari Nichols of Mountainpeek Creations, I used 18 of the 20 prints in the collection.  The remaining two didn't really fit the color groupings I needed for the mountains.  One of the unused fabrics is a beautiful larger-scale print with bison (buffalo) and dream catchers.  And this fabric is where I hatched this plan, back in December!

Dreamcatcher/Buffalo in Mixed Berry

See, my mom's favorite animal is the buffalo, or American bison. And, like me, her favorite color is purple.  In fact, she commented on Mountain Cabin that Catching Dreams were "her colors."  I already had the plan but her commented cemented that this would be the perfect birthday gift--the right animal and the right colors!

I had a half-yard of the print, called Dreamcatcher/Buffalo in mixed berry. I was able to fussy-cut 16 of the buffalo, and a 5" square would work with the fabric I had.  This would give me a 4 x 4 layout.  Each block is 13 1/2" unfinished, for a finished quilt that's roughly 52" square.

Back when I made Mountain Cabin, I used my Accuquilt Go! cutter to cut all the other Catching Dreams prints into 2 1/2" strips.  Each block got two rounds made from the strips. I didn't count, but I think this has all 20 fabrics from Catching Dreams.

I named this Buffalo Moon because Catching Dreams has several colorways of this moon and stars fabric.  It's possibly my favorite design in the collection and my mom has a strong love of the moon and actually has several moon-related art pieces in her bedroom, so this was just another reason that Catching Dreams was perfect for her. 

My current favorite thread for piecing is Aurifil 2625 from the Carrara color builder set.  I love gray as an all-purpose thread color.  I also used a Schmetz microtex chrome needle, 80/20.  I've been using Schmetz needles since I bought my first sewing machine in 1998.  The salesman told me my very, very inexpensive starter machine would run fine for a long time as long as I used quality thread and quality needles.  Clearly that advice stuck with me!

Materials used in this project were given to me by Island Batik, Aurifil, Accuquilt, and Schmetz.

I love the finished quilt and I think Mom will, too. She reads the blog, so I'll find out soon enough :)  And I made sure it was ok with her that I am posting this in June even though her birthday is in November.  I'll try to mail it early, too, so she can have it.  She's got a leather couch in her den that this will look great on!

And so I have a birthday gift ready early, thanks to the Free Theme.  If I'm lucky, I will have two more Island Batik projects to post his month.