Today is my day for the New Beginnings blog hop for Island Batik and the featured collection today is Dotalicious! It's a big collection featuring lots of different colors and patterns of dots! Who doesn't love a good polka dot? I know I sure do! You can check them all out
here.
The theme for our hop is New Beginnings - perfect for the month of January! I love the beginning of a new year and I always have lots of things I want to change and do differently. One of the things I wanted to do this year is to start making some of those quilt patterns that I admire. You know, the bucket list quilts that one never seems to get around to? With a beautiful stack of 18 colorful Dotalicious fabrics in front of me, the Ocean Waves pattern sprang to mind, so I started thinking about how I wanted to make this quilt.
Even though batiks are not really embraced by a lot of modern quiltmakers, I think they really work great, so decided to make my blocks bold and graphic.
As you can see, this whole block is made from just half square triangles!
I wanted to make a wallhanging size piece, so 12 blocks was just right for my purpose.
They looked mighty pretty on my design wall while I was arranging and rearranging them.
I didn't have a specific plan for the quilting when I started, but the dots got me to thinking if I could quilt it in a way that looked like more dots! I pulled some thread to match and started free motion quilting spirals. My Juki has lots of room for moving the quilt through the arm, so I was surprised at how fast it went!
And here is the finished quilt - what a lovely bright spot above my fireplace. Usually I hang a wintry blue and white quilt here during January, but I am excited to have a New Beginning with a bright and bold quilt gracing my wall for the month! It makes me smile to see it there, this fun quilt definitely makes up for the gray skies outside.
I enjoyed making this quilt so much that I thought I would like to share it as a pattern. I have it available for sale on Etsy as well as in my Payhip shop!
I also have a few extra pieces for blocks that I cut out and didn't use. If you would like to have these, enter my giveaway below. There are enough pieces for 6 blocks, and I'll be sure to send the winner a free pattern as well. This giveaway will end in a week, so make sure you enter soon, and share it with your friends as well.
Last but not least, Island batik is giving away TWO bundles of batik fabric! Make sure you enter this one as well.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Make sure you keep up on the posts for the hop - today there are four!
