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Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Crazy Quilts with Aurifil & Island Batik

All month long, Island Batik & Aurifil are crazy for crazy quilts! Each Island Batik ambassador was sent one of Aurifil's Color Builder sets and challenged to feature those threads in a crazy quilt project.  The 2022 Color Builder sets honor plants from the rain forest and highlights Aurifil's variegated threads.  I was sent the Stinking Corpse Lily set.  Despite the pungent name, the set features beautiful threads in sort of a coral colorway. The set includes 4250 Flamingo, a lovely light variegated thread, 4668 Strawberry Parfait, a variegated thread with lengths of darker coral added to the lighter shades, and 2435 Peachy Pink, a solid color thread that looks exactly as it is named.  

The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, Aurifil, Hobbs, and Schmetz.  


I knew that for crazy quilt, contrast was going to be key.  I decided to pair the Stinking Corpse Lily threads with a strip pack of Playful Purples.  It is no secret that purple is my favorite color, so I wanted to make something that I would get to see or use regularly, so I could revel in all the beautiful shades of purple.  When I was looking for smaller projects, I came across a tutorial for a covered composition notebook by the Quilt Rambler, who happens to be a former Island Batik ambassador.  

 

I made two notebook covers.  For the first, I essentially did the crazy quilting as I went.  I started by layering white solid as my foundation, which does not show in the final project, with a layer of Hobbs Thermore batting.  Thermore is a thin polyester batting that I have really come to love.  It's fabulous for small projects. Then I randomly picked two bits of fabric from Playful Purples and sewed them together.  

After rolling over the seam with my seam roller, I picked one of the three Stinking Corpse Lily threads and a fancy stitch from my sewing machine and stitched the decorative stitch across the seam.  I kept adding pieces of purple and using more stitches until I filled a piece slightly larger than needed for the notebook cover.  Each time, I picked which of the three threads I thought would look best.


For the second cover, I did a few things differently.  First, I drew dogwood blossoms on a four pieces of fabric to include. It's spring, so dogwoods are blooming here in North Carolina!  I sewed all the playful purple fabrics together first, rather than adding decorative stitches as I went--it certainly was much faster that way!   I also chose a single stitch, one I particularly liked in the first piece, and I only used the variegated Flamingo thread.  


I started the project with a brand new Schmetz microtex chrome needle, and it stitched all the decorative stitches beautifully.  I think both have the fun look of a crazy quilt.

Once I had all the crazy stitches done, I trimmed the pieces and got down to making the notebook covers.  I had some yardage of Thistle, the lightest of the Playful Purples, that I used for the lining.  The tutorial calls for ribbon, but I made my own using some of the strips pressed into quarters.  The tutorial was fairly easy to follow, and I really like that it includes a small vinyl pocket for pens.

 

It's fun to have an occasion and an excuse to use the decorative stitches on my machine.  A few years ago I made myself a stitch reference of all my machine's stitches --stitched in Aurifil thread, of course!  It was a handy reference to have for this project, as it reminded me what each stitch looks like when it is stitched out.  I used a lot of decorative stitches in two previous ambassador projects: in January 2020 I made a crazy quilted machine cover for the Let's Get Scrappy challenge, and in October 2020 I used decorative stitches as a form of thread painting for my Funky Flower in that year's Aurifil challenge. It was fun to have a crazy quilt challenge, and I'm pleased with my playfully purple notebooks!

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Stay at Home Round Robin Winners

 For the first time this year, we had prizes for the Stay At Home Round Robin!


Several of the hosts got together on a Zoom call and used a random number generator to pick winners.

Clockwise from top left: Roseanne, Gail, Emily, Anja




Gail has already contacted all the lucky winners.

  • Island Batik fat quarter bundle:  Mari @ Academic Quilter
  • Island Batik fat quarter bundle: Julie Ann @ Quilts and Costumes
  • Island Batik fat quarter bundle: Janice @ Sing Read Sew.com
  • Hobbs Wool Batt: Bernie @ Needle & Foot
  • Aurfil Thread:  Heather F
  • Oliso Mini Iron : Laura Kate @ Daily Fiber Fun
  • Pattern from For the Love of Geese (Denise): Dawn at Quilting by Dawn
  • Prairie Spirit Alpaca Pressing Mat: Diann at Little Penguin Quilts
  • Gift Certificate of choice from Chris: Carol @ Quilt Schmidt
  • Fat Quarter Shop Gift Certificate: Gretchen from Gretchen’s Little Quilts
  • MSQ Gift Certificate from Roseanne: Joy at The Joyful Quilter

We had several people ask if we will do the Stay at Home Round Robin again next year, and we absolutely will!