To showcase their newest fabric collections, Island Batik is hosting a blog hop over most of the month of December showcasing the new fabric and the classic Dresden Plate block. Each Island Batik Ambassador was sent one of the new collections and was tasked with creating a Dresden Plate quilt. The first two weeks of the hope have already passed and there have been some amazing creations!
I was sent Turtle Cove, a beautiful water-inspired collection of blues and greens with hints of turquoise. Turtle Cove was designed by Kathy Engle as a signature collection for Kari Nichols of Quilting Renditions. I was so excited to get this collection, and I'm even more excited about what I made with it! But you'll have to wait for that; my day on the hop is this Thursday, November 21st.
Several of the Ambassadors have noted that their quilt for this challenge is their first Dresden Plate quilt. That got me thinking about the previous Dresden-inspired quilts I've made, and there are three! And all of them are projects I made as previous Island Batik challenges. The first was four years ago, Dresden's Butterfly Garden for the Inspired By Nature blog hop in November 2020. I played with making butterflies using blades from the Dresden plate, and I added whole Dresdens as flowers.
photo by K. Mellnik
My second Dresden-based project was in July of 2021, when I made a fun turkey to hang on my door for the Never Too Early holiday-themed challenge. This was a pattern from Vicki who blogs at Vicki's Crafts & Quilting, and you can still get the pattern in her etsy shop. Her pattern is for a table runner but I just wanted the one turkey. It being the right time of year, I have this hanging on my front door now!
Looking for more lovely Dresden Plate quilts? Check out all of the Island Batik Ambassadors and their Dresden Plate blog hop projects, and then come back on Thursday to see mine!
This month's Island Batik challenge is my favorite annual challenge: a bag made with a pattern By Annie. We got to pick out a By Annie pattern as well as fabrics of our choice from the most recent batch of Island Batik collections. I've loved By Annie patterns since my first bag, made for a 2020 Island Batik challenge. Since then, I've made a whole lot of By Annie patterns and I love them all! I chose Totally Trendy Totes II for this year's challenge. This is one of Annie's older patterns, so I had to get permission from Annie herself to make this one for my Island Batik challenge.
I made a video showing off the totes and walking through some of the things I did a little differently, as well as showing the features of the tote.
Totally Trendy Totes has directions for totes in three sizes. The smallest is actually called Medium, and then there is Large and Extra Large. I was sent all the supplies needed to make the bags. If we were making more than one bag, we were encouraged to use multiple fabric collections. I picked out fabrics from Flower Pot for two of the bags and Daisy May for the third bag. I picked out Flower Pot fabrics before Jennifer Fulton asked me to participate in the blog hop for her signature line, so I got an extra dose of these beautiful fabrics!
My original plan was to make one bag in each of the three sizes. I made the medium first, which feels like a pretty standard tote bag size. Then I made the large in the blue and pink Flower Pot fabrics. It felt huge! I didn't think I'd use a bag bigger than the large. I even had an impromptu family meeting and we decided that the large was plenty big for us, that we wouldn't use something bigger, and that the extra large would probably be too heavy to carry if we filled it. So instead of making an extra large with my Daisy May fabrics, I made a second large. I'm very happy with all of them!
What they look like full. They hold a lot!
Items used in this project were provided to me by Island Batik, By Annie, Schmetz, Aurifil, and Oliso.
Annie calls for 3 fabrics for each bag but of course you can use more. There is a slip pocket on each side of the outside. I
like my pockets to each be different, so I used additional fabrics for
the second pocket on each bag. For the pink & blue bag, I cut a
daisy with my Accuquilt & Daisy die from other Flower Pot fabrics
and appliqued it on the pockets. It's my favorite pocket!
As I mentioned, this is an older By Annie pattern. That means it does not have the features that the newer patterns have, meaning no easy-to-print sheet of labels for pieces to cut out and no add-on video for the more difficult steps. I've gotten spoiled with her newer patterns and the extra features! She does update a few of her older patterns each year, so Totally Trendy Totes may get an update at some point.
This is honestly one of the most straightforward and easiest of her patterns that I've made. The only tricky part is the recessed zipper. While there is no add-on video, Annie did cover her method for a recessed zipper on one of her Live with Annie sessions, now available to view on youtube. It's the week 39 video and the recessed zipper part starts around minute 46:30. Her walk-through of the process was really all I needed. If you want a more in-depth look at making the bag in its entirety, the maker Quilt Passion has a series of videos on the entire construction, but the videos are not in English. The visual was still nice to have as reassurance. (I'm pretty sure the videos are in Swedish, though it may be Dutch. It's a Germanic language but is not German. My husband was very confused as to why I was watching videos in a language I do not understand!)
recessed zipper
One thing I like about Annie's patterns is that once you understand her techniques, you can add features from different bags. Totally Trendy Totes has two external slip pockets, one on each side of the bag. I wanted to add a zipper to one slip pocket so I would have a more secure option. Other bags of Annie's feature a zippered pocket, so I used methods from other bags. I have honestly done it enough I could do it from memory, but I did pull out my Out & About pattern from last year's Island Batik/By Annie challenge and double checked the direction for that front zippered pocket.
I also added a short strap with a D-ring to the top of the inside of each bag, as a place to hook my keys. A commercially made bag I have has a similar ring and I have found it really helpful not to have to dig for my keys, so I used Annie methods from other bags for attaching a D ring and made a nice key fob. I love being able to add touches that make my bags useful for me and how I will use them!
The best part of By Annie bags, other than Annie's fantastically thorough directions, is the Soft & Stable. It helps bags keep their shape. I use an Elmer's disappearing purple glue stick to adhere the fabric on either side of the Soft & Stable before quilting with Aurifil Thread and Schmetz needles. I feel very fancy when I use my Oliso iron to get the fabric wrinkle-free before layering it on the Soft & Stable.
I am usually so excited to make my By Annie bag that I do that as soon as the boxes that include my supplies arrive! This year, I really wanted these totes for my family vacation to the beach. I had the bag fabrics in the washer within 24 hours of my July box arriving and I started on the bag within 28 hours! I do not usually pre-wash my fabrics for quilts, but I do pre-wash for bags.
I really love my totes and have been using them since I made them in July. The colors are so bright and fun! It's a fabulous pattern. Thanks to Island Batik and By Annie for all the fabric and supplies to make these beautiful bags!
I decided to participate in the free Marble Mystery Quilt Along with Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs. Cheryl does a mystery quilt every year. I've participated twice, and though I've sat out the last few years, I always love seeing all the different versions. I didn't want to sit on the sidelines this year! Cheryl's mysteries are set at a nice, slow pace. If you are interested in joining in the fun, you can find the details here. Cheryl also offers a sneak peak if a true mystery isn't your style.
I am making my version of the Marble Mystery as one of this year's teacher quilts. It will be for the new media specialist who says her favorite color is orange. I went through my stash of Island Batik and picked out three fabrics in different shades of orange: Peach, Marmalade, and Dandelions in Pumpkin. I needed one more fabric that isn't the background. My local quilt shop had a beautiful yellow floral (also from Island Batik, of course) that I thought complimented the oranges really well. It's from the recent Vintage Charm collection.
Clues for the mystery come out the first Thursday of the month. I'm currently caught up. I can't wait to see how this turns out!
Welcome to my stop on the Flower Pot blog hop! Flower Pot is a beautiful new fabric collection by Island Batik that is a signature collection for my friend in Quilt Land, Jennifer of Inquiring Quilter. I loved these bright, pretty florals the moment I saw them and was so thrilled that Jennifer asked me to make something with these gorgeous fabrics. With a name like Flower Pot and the beautiful flower motifs in the fabric, I knew I wanted to make quilty flowers. I decided on my pattern Garden Breeze, so named because of the combination of flower and pinwheel blocks.
I decided to use all 6 of the primarily pink fabrics in Flower pot for the flowers, and 2 of the fabrics that read mostly yellow for the flower centers. There is a beautiful green/teal with very occasional bits of purple in it for the pinwheels. And I selected a fabulous multi-colored fabric from the line for the binding. I chose the Basic Flour from the Neutrals collection as the background, partially because I like the gentle swirls in it and partly because of the play on words of Flour/Flower. 😀 ⚘ Overall, there are 10 fabrics from Flower Pot in the quilt, plus Flour.
I am so thrilled with how Garden Breeze looks in Flower Pot fabrics! I had this in various stages on my design wall for about a month. My design wall is in the hallway and you can see it from the couch, so I loved seeing it out of the corner of my eye when watching TV with my family.
I quilted with organic wavy lines, my favorite quilting motif. I hope it looks like a gentle Garden Breeze! Ha! Buttercup was quite interested in the quilting and insisted she be allowed to inspect the proceedings.
This quilt is Buttercup Approved
I thought about adding an additional pinwheel block to each corner of the sashing, but I didn't like it when I laid it out. So then I had 4 extra pinwheel blocks. The student art club at the community college where I work is doing an community quilt project this month, so I turned those pinwheels and a few other Flower Pot fabrics into a 12" block for that quilt!
To celebrate Flower Pot, Jennifer has put together a full schedule of quilty goodness! She is having a giveaway of a fat quarter bundle of these gorgeous fabrics. You can enter to win here. She is also hosting a Quilt Along of her pattern Charlotte that starts on October 10th, and there are additional prizes for people sewing along. AND Charlotte has a companion quilt pattern; while you make Charlotte there are bonus HSTs that can be used to make Lydia. See the Charlotte & Lydia patterns here and register for the Quilt Along.
Here is the schedule of fabulous designers showing off Flower Pot fabrics with their beautiful designs and creations:
Welcome to my stop on Island Batik's Adventurous Applique blog hop! This month's challenge is to make an applique quilt specifically using the edge painting technique created by 4th & 6th designs. I was send the Geometric Symphony collection as well as 5 coordinating threads from Aurifil thread for the edge painting.
Materials used in this project were given to me by Island Batik, Aurifil, Schmetz, Hobbs, and Oliso.
I enjoy applique and was excited to try a new applique technique. The edge painting technique was originally inspired by flowers, so that was my tentative plan. But the Geometric Symphony fabric changed my plan. While beautiful, the bold geometric patterns would not work well for smaller, delicate areas of flowers. I needed something with larger pieces to show off the bold designs in the fabrics. I played around with a few different ideas and eventually landed on butterflies. I have the butterfly die for my Accuquilt Go and that would give me nice, big pieces to show off the fabric.
All 20 fabrics from Geometric Symphony are in this quilt. I used the 4 golden fabrics for the butterfly bodies, chose one the dark blue with magenta squares for the sashing (I had a 2-yard cut of that one), and used the other 15 fabrics for the butterfly wings. I cut both a top wing set and a bottom wing set from each of the wing fabric and mixed and matched.
Butterfly bodies
I typically use fusible web in my applique but the original edge painting technique uses glue (specifically Roxanne's glue baste-it). I didn't have any of that glue or any other fine applicator tip glue bottle. Once my butterfly wings were cut I was inpatient to get started, so I used Elmer's Disappearing Purple glue sticks instead. I love Elmer's disappearing Purple glue sticks, and I stock up each year in July/August during back-to-school sales. The glue sticks would not work as well if I had really small, delicate pieces, but for my larger pieces they worked great! The butterfly bodies were small enough that I did decide to use fusible web for those. My Oliso iron worked wonders with all of the pieces.
I wanted my butterflies to look like they were flying, so I used a Blender from the always-available Foundations collection, Wavy Dots in Bluebird, as my background. Once I had all the butterflies parts paired up and the edges glues down, I was ready for the applique! You can see a demonstration of this technique by one of the creators here. There is also a newer video here that uses fusible web instead of glue.
The stitching (& stabilizer) from the back
The videos I watched on the method said it is ok if it looks messy and goes outside the lines. Which is good, because I did go outside the lines! But I'm happy with how it looks, and once I got into the back-and-forth rhythm, I liked the method. I did find that I needed a stabilizer on the back of my block during the applique, and I used the tear-away stabilizer I had on hand. The Schmetz nonstick needles were perfect for all of the stitching, including the edge stitching.
I used the five beautiful threads Aurifil chose to coordinate with Geometric Symphony and simply chose the thread that I thought looked best with each fabric in the moment. So the same fabric in one butterfly may have a different thread color in another butterfly. I laid them all out as I finished and stitched together with simple sashing.
My finished top was 40" x 52". I had a throw sized batting of Hobbs Silk Blend batting from their Tuscany Collection. I layered that with the top and used the 2-yard cut of a golden swirl fabric from the Geometric Symphony for the back. I quilted with organic wavy lines and I love how it looks like the butterflies are flying.
Backing fabric also from Geometric Symphony
I named this The Geometry of Flight because I like the combination of the nod to the fabric collection and the natural flight of the butterflies.
Two other Ambassadors are playing with Geometic Symphony and applique today. Be sure to visit both Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts and Leah of Quilted Delights to see what they did with these fabrics! It's always fun to see such different looks from the same fabric collection.
What's a blog hop without lots of giveaways?! I cut a bunch of extra 5" squares of Geometric Symphony fabrics. (Sorry, I didn't get a chance to take a photo in time, I had a family situation come up.) Leave me a comment between now and September 21st and I'll pick a number randomly for a winner. Any comment is fine, but if you need a prompt, tell me what applique method you like. Edge painting? Needle turn? Fusible? Raw Edge? Something Else? None of the Above? (Preeti & Leah also have giveaways, as do many of the ambassadors on this hop. You can see the full schedule on my previous post. )
