Saturday, March 30, 2019

March Island Batik Challenge - Vintage Reimagined

A big part of being and Island Batik Ambassador is the monthly challenges.  Island Batik (and their industry partners, Aurifil Thread, Hobbs Batting, and Accuquilt) provided each of the Ambassadors with a big box of goodies, and challenge us with a monthly project.  This month we were asked to make a quilt inspired by something vintage, and to put our own twist on it.

Here is my quilt:

My inspiration came while I was looking through my old quilting books for an idea for Bea's Dust off a Quilting Book Blog hop!  This is one of the first quilting books I have ever purchased, and it's not only a lovely quilting book, but it has a lot of great information about the Amish people and their way of life.  This one is definitely in my keep pile!
There is not a pattern for this quilt in the book, just a photograph.  I am so inspired by the way the Amish have used solids with black to make wonderful striking quilts.  My twist on this lovely vintage quilt is to use modern batiks, and new cutting methods.
This block was simple to create, and I was excited to find it in the Qube quilt book (page 106 - Susannah).  What a great opportunity for me to become more familiar with the Go! cutting system.  I immediately thought of the solid black fabric from my spring 2019 box, plus the Paisley dot Stack I received in the fall box from 2018.  I immediately started working out the method of cutting my pieces from the 10 inch squares. 

I decided to make 20 blocks, and needed to cut 1 diamond in a square unit, four small half square triangles, and four 2 1/2 inch squares from each 10 inch square.  I started out by making 4 sets of five squares of fabric, and pressed them neatly together.  I cut the largest piece first - the small square die cuts four at a time, perfect! 
 
Then I cut the smaller diamond in a point piece and the four triangles.  After that, I cut triangle units from the leftover for a future scrappy project.
I got all the pieces I needed, plus 4 extra triangles from each square.  As you can see, there's not too much waste, and the pieces are all so nice and perfect!

The next step was cutting 80 black rectangles (love the black solid from Island Batik - we just got it in at Threads That Bind!).  I cut and fan-folded 5 inch strips for this, and was able to cut 12 pieces at a time.  So only 8 passes through the GO! cutter and I had all my rectangles ready for sewing.  I am really loving using this machine, and have noticed a definitely improvement in the tendinitis that has been bothering my right wrist as I've been doing a lot less rotary cutting the last couple of months!  

The hardest part of this quilt was arranging the fabrics in my blocks.  They all look so pretty together it was hard to decide!  I had a sad/happy feeling to be using these up. You know how it is - sometimes you just want to keep it in it's pretty package and pet it!

Doesn't the black just make these fabrics pop!  Love it!

Once I got the blocks sewn and up on the design board it didn't take long to cut the half square triangles for the outside edges and get it all sewn up.  I used 50 wt thread from Aurifil for the piecing.

When it was time to layer this quilt, I decided to try out the Black 80/20 Heirloom premium batting from Hobbs that I received in my Ambassador box.  I've read that the black batting is great for dark and bright fabrics to keep the colors intense.  I've used black poly before, but I was really impressed with the cotton from Hobbs.  It's super soft, and feels great.  And no white fuzzies on my quilt top!  It quilted up great, too, and has s nice soft drape even before washing. 

It took me forever to decide how to quilt this, but I finally went with swirls because I wanted to get this finished!  I used Aurifil thread 50 wt 2566 for the quilting - it's always hard to pick for a multicolored quilt, but I thought this looked good on the black as well as on all the colors.



I bound it with more of the solid black and the backing is a vibrant piece of Island Batik yardage that I had purchased as a possible border for another project.  It didn't work for that, but it was perfect on the back of this quilt:

My finished quilt measures 45 x 56.  I was actually hoping to be able to get a pattern written for this project because its perfect for 10 inch squares, but this month has been a little hectic - I promise it's on my to-do list if you are interested, though!

Thanks to the lovely people at Island Batik, Hobbs Batting, Aurifil Thread and Accuquilt for the materials used in making this project!  Definitely look for these products in your local quilt shop, and ask for them - they want to know what you are interested in, and that's how they decide what to stock.  I'm excited that my local shop is now carrying Island Batik, and my local friends will start seeing some of the samples I have made hanging there soon, and I will be offering classes as well!  We've scheduled a class for my Fancy Feathers quilt coming up in June, plus the kit will be available in late May as well.  

Make sure you visit the other Island Batik Ambassadors and see what they made this month for the challenge - so many lovely projects!  Have a great weekend!

Carolina Asmussen ~Carolina Asmussen
Gene Black ~ Gene Black
Pamela Boatright ~ PamelaQuilts (Me!)
Connie K Campbell ~ Freemotion by the River
Anja Clyke ~ Anja Quilts
Tina Dillard ~ Quilting Affection Designs
Becca Fenstermaker ~Pretty Piney
Jennifer Fulton ~ Inquiring Quilter
Barbara Gaddy ~ Bejeweled Quilts by Barb
Dione Gardner-Stephen ~ Clever Chameleon
Sarah Goer ~ Sarah Goer Quilts
Vasudha Govindan ~ Storied Quilts
Lori Haase ~ Dakota City Quilter II
Joanne Hart ~ Unicornharts
Mania (Magdalini) Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for Quilts
Carla Henton ~ Creatin’ in the Sticks
Stephanie Jacobson ~ Steph Jacobson Designs
Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs
Joan Kawano ~ Moosestash Quilting
Kim Lapacek ~ Persimon Dreams
Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood
Leanne Parsons ~ Devoted Quilter
Bea Lee ~ BeaQuilter
Toby Lischko ~ Gateway Quilts & Stuff
Bill Locke ~ Studio Bill Locke
Denise Looney ~ For the Love of Geese
Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights
Sally Manke ~ Sally Manke
Maryellen McAuliffe ~ Mary Mack's Blog
Kathleen McCormick ~ Kathleen McMusing
Carol Moellers ~ Carol Moellers Designs
Karen Neary ~ Sew Karen-ly Created
Lisa Nielsen ~ Lisa Lisa and the Quilt Jam
Jackie O’Brien ~ If These Threads Could Talk
Laura Piland ~ Slice of Pi Quilts
Michelle Roberts ~ Creative Blonde
Vicki Schlimmer ~ Vicki's Crafts and Quilting
Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail
Sherry Shish ~ Powered by Quilting
Anita Skjellanger ~ Quilt in a not-Shell
Laticia "Tish" Stemple ~ Tish's Adventures in Wonderland
Jennifer Strauser ~ Dizzy Quilter
Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations
Terri Vanden Bosch ~ Lizard Creek Quilts
Alison Vermilya ~ Little Bunny Quilts
Sandra Walker ~ mmm! quilts
Suzy Webster ~ Adventurous Applique and Quilting
(Debora) Anne Wiens ~ Seams like a Plan
Geraldine Wilkins ~ Living Water Quilter
Janet Yamamoto ~ Whispers of Yore

6 comments:

Denise said...

Beautiful Pamela.

Kathleen said...

Wonderful vintage reimagined quilt! I think the swirls are perfect and isn’t that cutter fun. I am seriously thinking of only using it when not paper pieceing or applique.

Barb said...

Turned out wonderfully....

Alison V. said...

This is so bright and fun!

Emily said...

What amazing colors! And talk about getting the most out of your fabrics!!!!! Beautiful quilt!

Cheryl said...

Beautiful quilt! I love the design and colors.