Honey, Bunny, and Doll Updates {Patterns + Upcoming Sale}

Today I have a few "business items" to share!

First, I am very excited to share that the FREE one page pattern for the Ombre Everest mini quilt is now available!

If you make your own version of this quilt, make sure you share on social media with #OmbreEverest!

The complete pattern of Christine's Kitchen is now also available!

Finally, we are excited to share that we are a sponsor of the Magnolia Mystery QAL hosted by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs! At the end of the quilt along, one quilt finisher will be able to chose a pre-cut or bundle of their choice from our Etsy shop!

Happy Friday!

Ombre Everest {Finished Mini Quilt}

For my last installment of my May Modern Mini (say that three times fast!) project, I'm sharing my finished Ombre Everest mini quilt!

Hello gorgeous!

When last I shared, I had made all of the necessary wonky cross blocks for my mini:

All of the columns except one have a spacer at the top of the "pile" of wonky crosses.

My columns came together quite quickly:

...and so did the mini quilt top!

Because the wonky crosses in every other row are offset from one another, I needed to give the quilt a little bit of a trim before I layered and pinned the top with the batting and backing.

For the inside of the mountain, I used Superior Threads Fantastico variegated thread on the front. For the sky portion, I used a light blue thread from my stash. I used Aurifil 40 wt. thread for the bobbin thread throughout as well as the binding.

I had already decided on how I would quilt this mini during the design process, before I had even cut a single strip! The quilting in the background echos the outline of my mountain; the quilting in the mountain are random diagonal lines through the mini quilt.

I used the medium shade of purple fabric for the binding. I used the other four shades on my pieced backing. I used two 10 inch squares for my hanging pockets. They don't quite fit my purple theme, but they'll likely be hiding forever! My backing ended up ever so slightly askew but at least my quilting doesn't have any tucks on the back!

And not only am I excited to have another finished project, I am excited to share that the free pattern for this mini quilt will be available very soon on Craftsy! I will update this post when it is available!

Quilt Stats:
Name: Ombre Everest
Fabrics: Island Batik Blenders
Threads: Aurifil and Superior Threads Fantastico
Piecing: Wonky Crosses (tutorial here)
Pattern: self-designed, available soon on Craftsy
Quilting: random diagonals in the mountain, echo steps in the sky
Size: 27 inches square (I think this might technically be larger than a standard "mini" quilt, so does that make it a "midi" quilt?)

Sharing at Linky Tuesday and Finish it up Friday!

Batiks Gone Modern {Making Wonky Crosses In Bulk}

It's time for Batiks Gone Modern, Episode 2: Attack of the Wonky Crosses!

To recap, I'm making a abstract Mount Everest out of wonky crosses, using 5 shades of purple batiks.

First the winner of my batik giveaway:

Congrats, Rachel! A fun bundle of your favorite colors will be on its way to you soon!

Today I'm going to talk about my process of making wonky cross blocks in bulk. I will preface this post with the disclaimer that I am not the wonky-est blogger on the block. I think that most people will tend to call my blocks "controlled wonky" but this is who I am as a person. I'm also slightly limited because of the small size of my cross blocks -- these will finish at 3 inches square, which is the same size as a Post-It note, for scale.

Now onto the sewing!

For the purposes of this tutorial, I'm going to be working with fabrics #3 and #4. For these blocks my darker fabric will always be my "cross" and the lighter fabric is the background.

To make approximately 6 blocks, cut the following
1 - 3.5 inches x 22 inch (half width of fabric) rectangle of your background fabric
2 - 1.5 inches x WOF strip of your cross fabric -- cut one strip in half

Lay your 3.5 inch x 20 inch rectangle on your cutting mat. Using a long ruler, cut a diagonal cut lengthwise through the rectangle, creating two halves. The start and end of your cut should be at least 1 inch from the corner so that your cross doesn't end up too close to the edge of the block (which I learned the hard way!)

Sew both halves of the background fabric to your shorter 1.5 inch strip, pressing toward your darker fabric, aware of potential stretch along the bias.

Measure the length of your new unit, and cut 5 or 6 sections of equal width. For mine, my piece was 22.25 inches long so I cut sections 3.75 inches wide. You do not need to worry a lot about the "rough ends" since we'll be trimming our blocks at the end!

At this point, you can slice your block in half in any direction of your choice to create the space for the second half of your cross. I varied the angle at which my second piece crossed the first piece. I sewed all of my first half of each block to the same 1.5 inch strip, then cut the strip apart and pressed. I then added the second half of each block and pressed.

Now it's time to trim all of our blocks to our desired size - 3.5 inches. You can also use this step to vary the angles of your crosses within the blocks. Most of my untrimmed blocks were about 4 inches square so I had some wiggle room in determining how I wanted my final blocks to look.

And we just made 6 wonky cross blocks and saved a little bit of time by being able to strip piece and chain piece our blocks (at least part of the time!)

For this project, I made a total of 59 wonky cross units in four different fabric pairs for my ombre Everest:
16 - dark dot print fabric + dark tonal
16 - dark tonal + medium tonal
12 - medium tonal + medium burst print (shown above)
15 - medium burst print + light tonal

Next week, I'll be posting about putting the top together and the final product! I've already planned my quilting idea out and am excited to see if it will work or not!

Sharing at Tips and Tutorials Tuesday at Quilting Jet Girl, Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts, and NTT at My Quilt Infatuation!

Sharing at Show Me Something {Purple} at Sarah Goer Quilts for January 2020!

Batiks Gone Modern {Introduction + Giveaway}

This is the project that I am MOST excited about as an Island Batik Ambassador -- our modern quilt month!

Some people think that modern quilting and batiks don't mix -- those people would be wrong.

To me, modern quilting is dominated more by design aesthetics rather than the type of fabric. Obviously, some fabrics lend themselves more readily to a modern aesthetic than others but let's take a stroll on the wild side and let me convince you that batiks can be totally modern.

1. Any quilt in all solids is easily translated into batik "near-solids" or blenders.
I would consider this as a "jumping off point" for any modern quilter wanting to work with batiks.

2. Batiks and ombre are a match made in quilter's heaven.
Batiks have a built in "blend" within themselves -- making them a perfect choice for an ombre quilt.

3. You can cut batik fabric into the same shapes and sew it together using any modern-styled pattern.
Alternate gridwork? Totally an option. Wonky piecing? Yep, you can do that. Paper piecing? Sure! (I think you get the picture.)


Before you go buy 30 yards of batiks, let's bring you back to earth and note a few caveats and limitations with batiks:

1. More than likely, you're not going to mix prints and batiks.
One exception is using a blender batik as your background, but most of the time you'll lean toward making all batik projects.

2. The larger scale prints might not be as easily used in modern-style pieces.
The high color contrast larger scale prints might not be as easy to use in a modern quilt project as things with blender batiks or smaller scale prints that read as a solid or blender at a distance.

3. Be prepared for the texture difference.
As a whole, I find that batiks can be slightly thinner but also slightly stiffer than a comparable print or solid fabric. (And ps. expect to pay a few dollars more for batiks as your LQS!)


So let's dive into what I'm going to be making this month. For this project I decided to design around the fabric that I had, rather than starting with a basic design. Once you see the fabric you'll understand why:

I saw it and it screamed "Make us into something ombre-gorgeous, Alison!" and I complied.

Ombre on its own certainly isn't modern (look at the traditional bargello quilts from the last 20 years) so I wanted to use a distinctly modern block and/or block arrangement so that if you saw this quilt from 10 yards, you would say, "A modern mini!" and be very excited. Here's my mock-up design:

Yes. Everest made from a mountain of ombre wonky crosses. For some reason Blogger turned the diagram magenta rather than the lovely shades of purple and lavender that I made it in, but I think you get the point. All of my fabric cuts are half yards, so the outermost border will depend on how much I have left of it at the end. My design ends up at approximately 32 inches square.

My goal is to have this mini quilt as a free pattern at the end of the month, but if you want to make along with me, I'll be putting the directions up here on the blog as I go along. This doesn't have any sort of set schedule since I'm already hosting one quilt along, but expect 2-4 more posts about this project with lots of pictures and details.

What would you have made with this bundle? Tell me and you'll be entered to win some Island Batik fabric in your choice of colors!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social!