The Darling Dogwood: December 2022

Friday, December 9, 2022

Lone Star Jacket

Quilt Coats are quite the trend right now, even beyond the quilting world. I don't normally care about fashion trends, but I do like the idea of a quilted coat or jacket. Problem is, I have zero garment-making skills. I have tried and the results have not been good. I have wondered if I could go the sweatshirt-turned-into-a-quilted-jacket route, and have watched this tutorial with Edyta Sitar several times for the method. When I learned that one of the Island Batik challenges was the Lone Star, I thought a lot about making a quilted jacket using a sweatshirt for the challenge since a Lone Star would look fabulous on the back of a jacket. Ultimately, I decided it was too risky and moved on to design a Lone Star quilt.

But I couldn't get the idea of a Lone Star on the back of a jacket out of my head. Jordan Fabrics has a tutorial for a smaller Lone Star, and I thought if I made the strips narrower, the Lone Star might be small enough to fit on my back. So once I had chosen my fabrics for Crayola Explosion, I looked at the fabrics I hadn't used and tried to find a combination of 5 fabrics that I liked. I ended up repeating two fabrics. I decided to applique the star to the back of a denim jacket. My biggest problem was that I really didn't want raw edges. I bought some skinny pre-made bias binding and used that to encase the edges. That worked well.

My plan is to keep this jacket at work so I have something to throw on when I'm cold. With the variety of colors, I figure I can wear it with anything. The fabrics are Island Batik, of course, from the Chickadee collection, and I did use Aurifil thread and Schmetz needles. I've worn it at work a few times now and gotten many comments on it. I'm pretty happy with it, and I love that I can kind of hop on the Quilt Coat bandwagon without needing to make the garment!

If you like the Chickadee fabrics, I have a giveaway on this post until December 23rd to win a set of 2 1/2" strips from the collection--it's not a full jelly roll, just one each of 18 fabrics from the collection, but there are lots of bright colors.

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Crayola Explosion--a Lone Star with Island Batik

The Lone Star is a classic quilt pattern. This month, Island Batik challenged their ambassadors to make a Lone Star with one of the newest fabric collections. I've made a Lone Star once before, back in 2004 (pre-blog) and I used QuiltSmart's fusible interfacing. Since I used QuiltSmart interfacing for my June challenge, I decided to look for an alternative. I found a fabulous tutorial on YouTube from Jordan Fabrics. This tutorial uses 2 1/2" strips AND is made without Y seams. Sold! (And I'm not the only ambassador who used this tutorial!)

Though I loved the Jordan Fabrics tutorial, I knew I didn't want my colors to be random. I was feeling low-tech, so I started with a printable Lone Star and got out my colored pencils. I love this design, but would have to add a purple from the basics collection to the already bright and wonderful Chickadee. I also wasn't sure this would allow for enough of the 20 fabrics in Chickadee. So I then turned to EQ8 to plan my fabric placement. I loved a lot of layouts, but really wanted to showcase as many of the bright fabrics in Chickadee as possible. My final design includes 15 fabrics in the star itself and a 16th as the binding. I used the always-available Coconut from the Foundations collection as the background.

I loved the Jordan fabrics tutorial! I did not use the off-cut sections as she does, but I did save them and I have an idea on how to use them, it's just a matter of finding the time. I did mark and pin my intersections, which is time-consuming but worth it. I am not normally a pinner but in this case it felt important, and I'm happy with my point intersections. One thing I did do that helped a lot is print out a copy of color placement from EQ. Then I marked the sections of three that the pattern/tutorial create, so I would have an idea of how to piece it and how to lay it out.

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

One of the best parts about this method is that it uses 2 1/2" strips. I cut mine with my Accuquilt Go! cutter and their 2 1/2" strip die. I was able to cut all my strips fairly quickly and they are so accurate! My pressing mat from Prairie Spirit Alpaca was great for helping to press seams as flat as possible. I quilted it with Aurifil Thread color 1135 Pale Yellow. I used Hobbs 80/20 bleached batting, perfect for quilts with a light background. All stitching was done with a Schmetz chrome needle.

cutting strips with AccuQuilt

In addition to the larger Lone Star, which uses 20 2 1/2" strips, Jordan Fabrics has a tutorial for a wall hanging Lone Star as well. I had a fun idea for a bonus Lone Star project. I used this second tutorial, but I knew that I needed it even smaller for what I had in mind. So I cut my strips for my "baby Lone Star" 1 1/2" wide but otherwise followed the tutorial. This one uses 5 different fabrics. I used 3 that weren't in my full-sized Lone Star, plus 2 repeats, meaning I used 19 of the 20 fabrics in the Chickadee collection. Here is my baby Lone Star--come back on Friday to see my bonus project!

Small Lone Star

Chickadee was designed by Kathy Engle for the Whimsical Workshop. This collection is full of bright colors and makes me think of the original Crayola marker packs I had to take to school as a kid, So I named this Crayola Explosion.

Want a chance to win some Chickadee fabric? I cut an extra 2 1/2 inch strip of each fabric except the binding fabric, so I have a set of 18 2 1/2" strips to give away. See the Rafflecopter below to enter. Be aware that I likely won't ship the prize until the new year, as I don't love going to the post office close to Christmas. Any blog comment will count, but if you need a prompt, tell me what classic quilt pattern is next on your to-make list.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Stop by and visit my friend and fellow ambassador Preeti Harris @ Sew Preeti Quilts and see what she made with the Chickadee collection. And be sure to check out all the ambassadors throughout the month of December for their Lone Star quilts. You can find the schedule here.

Monday, December 5, 2022

Lone Star Blog Hop

Today starts the Lone Star blog hop featuring Island Batik's newest fabric collections. Each Island Batik was sent one of the complete collections and tasked with making a Lone Star quilt.

I was sent the Chickadee, designed by Kathy Engle as a signature collection for The Whimsical Workshop. Chickadee looks like a child's crayon box! It was a lot of fun to work with and I can't wait to show you what I made! I'm early on this hop, so you'll only have to wait until Wednesday.

Here is the full schedule, which takes us through almost the entire month of December. Be sure to check out everyone for a whole lot of Lone Star inspiration! And Island Batik does a new giveaway every Friday during the hop, so be sure to visit them weekly! Some ambassadors will also do their own bonus giveaways, so don't miss anyone!

WEEK 1

December 5