30 Pearls {Finished Quilt}

Happy birthday to me and hip hip hooray for another finish!

My modern-themed quilt for our June Island Batik Ambassador challenge is finished! You can see the first two posts on this quilt here and here.

I finished the binding and trimmed all of the lose threads last night and am going to hang it up in my sewing room later today!

As I explained in my original post, there are 30 "pearls" to celebrate my 30th birthday (today!), pearls are my birthstone, and pearl is a traditional 30th anniversary gift.

I quilted free motion pebbles in each pearl with white Aurifil. In the backgrounds I used five different shades -- hot pink, red, dark coral, orange, and purple -- to quilt the different filler motifs. I used 56 different filler motifs inspired by Leah Day's quilting gallery! It required quite a bit of starting and stopping, which I don't normally like to do when I quilt, but it was 100% worthwhile for this quilt to be exactly as I had envisioned.

The binding and hanging pocket are of a cream Island Batik print that is slightly darker than my pearls. I had originally pulled a purple fabric for the binding but I didn't have quite enough fabric for that. In the below picture, you can really make out some of the quilting with the orange thread!

For the whole quilt, I used white thread in the bobbin so that I didn't have to change both the top thread and the bobbin every time I needed to switch between colors (which was a lot!). The texture on the backing is just so fun! I managed to keep my pieced backing nearly perfectly square with the top, which is a miracle for me!

I will try to post some close up pictures of some of my favorite quilted sections on Instagram over the weekend. Using Leah Day's gallery as my inspiration was a great starting point however I had to think through how to quilt some of the designs in the arcs! Some were easier than others to "bend" into the arched spaces -- like the meandering type motifs and feather type motifs -- than others! There were a few that I decided would only work in the full squares rather than in the arches, which worked out well.

This project is a rarity in that I both designed and made it for me for fun. I enjoy and love just about all of the quilting that I do but I don't often make something "just for me" and it was a nice change of pace to be completely selfish with this project and be finicky about every detail without worrying about writing a pattern to go along with it.

As always, a big yippee hooray thank you to Island Batik for providing these fabrics for me each month to play with and to stretch my creativity! I love our modern challenge month as Amabassadors and this might be my favorite Ambassador project of all of the things I have made in the last 18 months!

Quilt Stats:
Name: 30 Pearls
Design: self designed, essentially randomly spaced drunkard's path blocks
Fabrics: Sunflower Serenade from Island Batik
Size: 42 inches square
Quilting: pearls: pebbles in white Aurifil;
     background: 56 different motifs inspired by Leah Day in pink, purple, red, orange, and dark coral Aurifil
Started: April 2018
Finished: June 2018

Have a wonderful weekend!

30 Pearls {Quilt Top}

I'm excited to share my finished quilt top for our June Island Batik Ambassador project!

First and foremost, I love that my original vision worked out so well with these fabrics and was so simple to create! Even though I'm a nervous pinner for sewing curves, the blocks were quick and easy. 

The one change from my original design is that I pieced the top and bottom sashing (which makes the quilt square rather than rectangular) instead of it being single pieces. This was out of necessity (since I was working with fat eighths!) and I think it looks great.

Here's the top together:

And for comparison, here's the original design!

Since I didn't want to buy something as a separate backing for this quilt (since it's going to be a wall hanging), I pulled some of my 5" Island Batik stash builder strips, one of the fat eighths that I didn't use in the quilt top, and a larger piece of green yardage (some of which I had used in my Blocked Rainbow quilt).

The green piece of yardage wasn't quite big enough on its own for the backing, so I needed it to "grow" a little bit. I sewed the 5" strips end to end and then added four slice-and-insert strips to my green yardage, two going in each direction.

I like the added interest on the back, even if I'll be the only one that knows it's there! Now to work in earnest on quilting the top! I'm planning to use white thread in the "pearls" and colored thread in the background. I actually have about a dozen different pink, purple, red, and orange-hued spools of Aurifil that I've been auditioning! I've also been studying Leah Day's quilting gallery for quilting ideas.

Happy Friday and happy sewing! Sharing at Finished or not Friday and Linky Tuesday!

Mostly Modern {June IBA Challenge}

It's my favorite month for us Island Batik Ambassadors -- it's Modern month! I started plotting this project as soon as we got the schedule for this year!

The Modern Quilt Guild provides the following definition of modern quilting:

"Modern quilts are primarily functional and inspired by modern design. Modern quilters work in different styles and define modern quilting in different ways, but several characteristics often appear which may help identify a modern quilt. These include, but are not limited to: the use of bold colors and prints, high contrast and graphic areas of solid color, improvisational piecing, minimalism, expansive negative space, and alternate grid work."

Last year I designed and made my Ombre Everest mini quilt which focused on improvisational piecing but also included alternate grid work.

This year, I decided I wanted to use the pink fabrics from my Sunflower Serenade bundle (below) combined with cream for a very bold mini quilt.

This is the design I mocked up with some of the fabric swatches:

This "30 Pearls" design is inspired by the fact that pearl is the birthstone for June and a traditional 30th anniversary gift, in honor of my upcoming 30th birthday. The simple drunkard's path block "pearls" are scattered throughout the grid semi-randomly with lots of negative space for me to free motion quilt.

I'm done with the cutting for the blocks and have sewn the first two rows of drunkard's path blocks.

Next week I'm hoping to have a finished top to show off! I'm already thinking about the quilting for this one -- I think the white areas should be filled with pebbles (obviously!) and then I'll use a few different fillers for the pink fabrics. What do you think?

Don't forget to check out what my fellow ambassadors have been working on by checking out the Island Batik Facebook page! Sharing at Finished or not Friday!

Marigold Mini {Finished}

I think I finally understand why mini quilts are so addicting, guys. Also, I really love how easy they are to quilt. :)

My June IBA project is now complete -- and ready to hang up!

As I planned, I quilted with peach thread in the flowers, green thread in the leaves, and off-white thread in the background. I quilted feathers in the leaves, meanders in the flowers, and loops in the background.

The backing is also from the new Bonsai collection from Island Batik. I used two of the "rainbow" floral prints and since I had two half yard cuts, I had to piece the back. The binding is the lighter green fabric that I used in the leaves.

(PS. it is not as wobbly as a couple of these pictures suggest, the grass hill, while beautiful and green, is not exactly flat!)

Now to hang this on my wall!

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Adapted from Pen and Paper Patterns' Marigold quilt
Size: 22 inches square
Techniques: curved piecing with templates, machine applique, free motion quilting
Quilting: various FMQ patterns
Binding: double fold, straight grain binding

Sharing at Let's Bee Social, Free Motion Mavericks, and Finish It Up Friday!

Curvalicious {Pieced Marigold Mini}

Thank you for all of the kind words about my Rainbow sampler! It's truly an honor to be temporarily "quilt famous" and have my work recognized in this way. :)

I've been working on piecing my Marigold Mini Quilt this week and now the top is ready to be quilted! As I noted in my intro post, I bought the templates to go along with this project, and it was a very good investment. While it would be nice to have the alignment notches that the Accuquilt cutters add, I didn't find pinning and aligning terribly difficult. I've done a fair amount of curved piecing in the past (mainly in my NY Beauty quilt). Here are all of my arcs sewn before and after trimming:

These blocks were very easy to sew together and align! I cut my orange fabric so that all of the stripes would go in the same direction for the flower.

I added sashing strips between the flowers and on the sides so that the mini will end up about 22 inches square. I used a purple variegated thread from Superior Threads for the machine applique accents.

Now this little cutie is ready to quilt! My plan is to quilt the orange section with peach thread, the green leaves with a green thread, and the background with cream. I am planning to use some additional fabric from the Bonsai line for the backing fabric!

Have a wonderful weekend! And just for fun, here's a picture of my husband and I from the wedding we attended last weekend:

Sharing at Linky Tuesday!

Curvalicious {June Island Batik Project + Giveaway}

Update: Giveaway is closed and winner is noted below!

It's June! It's my birthday month! It's time to share the June Island Batik Ambassador theme and have a giveaway!

Curves, curves, curves! And like last month I've already picked out my project for this month -- I'm planning to make a two block mini quilt from Pen & Paper Patterns' Marigold pattern. I actually bought this pattern last year during May is for Makers!

Because I plan to use this pattern to make a larger sized quilt for myself or as a gift in the near future, I went ahead and ordered the recommended laser-cut templates from Burntwood and Acrylic on Etsy.

Here's my fabric pull for this project:

The orange and purple are from the stash builder rolls, but the two green prints are from the new Bonsai line from Island Batik! You'll be able to find this in stores later this summer!

My plan is to make two full flowers for my mini, but have them side by side rather than offset. The orange will be the flower fabric, and the purple will be the teardrop accents.

I was able to get all of the pieces cut quite quickly with the templates! For the teardrop accents, I traced the shapes onto the fusible web, ironed the fusible web onto the fabric, and then cut the shapes out.

Next, I'll be working on sewing all of the curves!

Onto the giveaway!

The giveaway this month will be your choice: Island Batik Fat Quarters in colors of MY choice -OR- cuts of any size in colors of YOUR choice -- it's a pick your poison kind of giveaway! Giveaway will close on Friday, June 16th.

To enter:
1. Let me know which you'd pick -- surprise fat quarters or fabrics in your favorite colors.
2. Anyone who shares this giveaway post (on your own blog, Pinterest, FB page, Twitter, etc.) gets one additional entry. Share this post and tell me in a second comment how you shared.

Our winner is Pamela!

Happy Monday to you! I am recovering from a whirlwind wedding weekend in Wisconsin (say that three times fast!) so I am in need of a good nap! Sharing at Linky Tuesday!