Lavender Waves - Create for a Cause with Island Batik

Welcome to my stop on Island Batik's Create for a Cause blog hop!  This hop highlights Island Batik's newest collections that are available in stores now.  I was sent the absolutely beautiful Lavender Fields collection, a gorgeous array of purples and pale blues.  

 

Lavender Fields was designed by Kathy Engle and is a signature collection for Tammy Silvers of Tamarinis. 

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

photo by K. Mellnik

I've had bargello on my quilty bucket list and I decided that Lavender Fields would be perfect for a bargello.  I've mentioned that I'm learning to use EQ8 and that I've been doing the lessons Tech Know Quilters with Kari Schell of On Point Quilter.  One of the monthly themes was bargello quilts and I used the lessons to create what I am calling Lavender Waves.  I am happy with how it turned out and definitely think I'll make more bargello style quilts in the future!

photo by Kate Mellnik

It's been cold for North Carolina here but I had a date to meet my friend Kate to go walking and take quilt pictures last Friday.  It ended up being a little rainy so we stayed local instead of going to a state park, but there were some lovely spots on the greenway.  Kate has photographed several of my Island Batik projects and her photos are always amazing!

photo by K. Mellnik

I used my Accuquilt and the 2 1/2" strip die to cut strips from 19 of the 20 fabrics.  I originally had all 20 in the bargello itself but decided that one was a little too dark and stood out too much, so I swapped it for a repeat of a lovely dark purple with poppies. I used that 20th fabric as the binding, so all 20 are in the quilt and visible. This measures 47" x 49".

Before I started piecing my strip sets I put a brand new Schmetz chrome needle in my machine.  I did my piecing with Aurifil 6732 Earl Gray and the quilting with Aurifil 5003 Wine.  For the quilting, I wanted to mimic the motion of the quilt so I did straight lines that swept up and down on each fabric, hoping to convey the Lavender Waves feeling I named the quilt for.  The batting is Hobbs Heirloom 100% cotton.

photo by K. Mellnik

The theme for this hop is Create for a Cause, so we are charged to create a quilt to donate to the organization of our choice.  This will go to one of the organizations in North Carolina that supports survivors of human trafficking.  I hope it brings hope and comfort to someone.

Bonus Donations

I've had this quilt done for a few weeks, and last Thursday I was starting to think about my quilt guild's current charity project.  This year we are making placemats to donate to Friendship Trays (a Meals on Wheels organization) so recipients will get something pretty along with their meal.  I remembered that I had some of my strip set left over, so I got it out to see if it could become a bonus donation.  I guessed that I could get 3 placemats out of strip set, so that became my Sunday sewing project.  I figured out the best way to separate the strips into smaller groups and added Island Batik's gray solid.  It was fun to play around with the leftovers! It's a modern guild so two of these are intentionally off-center and I used a different quilting design for each.

 

Giveaway

And now for a giveaway!  I've put together a small prize package with 2 fat quarters from an older Island Batik collection called Petal Party (the rest of the collection will be in my April project), a package of Schmetz chrome needs, a Schmetz pocket guide, a Schmetz luggage tag for when traveling is ok again, and a magnetic wand for pins.  Island Batik has a giveaway each week during the blog hop, you can enter this week's contest for a precut of Mystery, which will be featured this Thursday on the hop.

prize package

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to visit Jennifer from The Inquiring Quilter and check out what she made with Lavender Fields.  And you can find the full blog hop schedule here. 

photo by K. Mellnik