Orange Blooms

For March's Island Batik Ambassador challenge, all the choices are up to us!  We can make whatever we want with Island Batik fabric.  I've been obsessed with flower quilts lately, and when I was at a new-to-me quilt shop about an hour away a few months ago, I picked up 2 flower quilt patterns.  One was Bloom by Kate Spain.  Here's my version!

I decided to stretch myself a little and focus on orange for these flowers.  Orange is not normally my color but I do love the brightness of these blooms.  I went through my scraps of Island Batik and pulled out all the orange and orange-adjacent fabrics I could find.  Many of these are stash-builder strips, which are 5" by WOF.  Once I had all the flower fabrics picked out and cut, I dug through my scraps and stash-builder strips again, this time looking for greens for the leaves and stems.

Whenever I'm following someone else's pattern, I figure out what pieces I can cut with my Accuquilt to save time.  Many parts of the flowers use HSTs, so I cut those with my Accuquilt.   

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

I actually did all the piecing on this one a few months ago, but it's been sitting around waiting to be finished and photographed.  Now that spring is finally here, I was inspired to finish it!  

 

I quilted it with yellow Aurifil thread with my favorite organic wavy lines quilting.  Schmetz needles are the only needles I use, for piecing and for quilting. The batting is Hobbs Tuscany collection cotton wool blend.  (Because I pieced this in 2024, I did not yet have my Oliso mini iron, but I did use it to press my backing, not pictured.)

My Orange Blooms quilt measures 52" x 55".  And I am not even close to being over my current obsession with flower quilts!