On the Plus Side {Finished Quilt}

This has been a very busy month and I'm relieved that I was able to finish this quilt up over the long weekend!

But first, take a quick peek at the pictures I showed yesterday -- does anything look different in my final quilt?

Yes, I added a grey border all the way around the quilt. No, this wasn't a part of my original plan and I'm very glad that my spontaneous decision worked!

The main reason I didn't add a border when I was finishing the quilt top was that I wasn't sure that I had enough backing fabric to accommodate a border. After I finished quilting the black small plus blocks, I had the quilt laid on the floor and realized that I had enough backing and batting on all four sides to add a bit of a border. I cut 4" strips of grey solid and added them to the quilt using the quilt as you go method and used black thread in the bobbin so that the stitches would be less obvious on the backing.

In the grey areas, I did swirls with grey thread and in the orange plus blocks in the corns, I used a bright orange Aurifil to quilt wishbone-style loops.

For the binding, I used a yellow floral batik and did the binding entirely by machine.

Here's a full shot of just the back of this quilt.

The quilting with the black thread is nearly invisible in the full quilt picture above, but is visible below.

I'm not exactly sure what this quilt's future will be but for now it might get hung in my sewing room. While not among my most ambitious undertakings quilting-wise, I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

As always, a big hip hip hooray to Island Batik for allowing me to be an ambassador and tasking me with these fun monthly projects and a special thank you to Hobbs Batting for providing all of us Ambassadors with lots of great battings and sponsoring this month's project.

As an Island Batik Ambassador, I am provided with samples of various lines of Island Batik fabrics, Aurifil thread, and Hobbs batting to use and share with you!

Quilt stats: 

Name: On the Plus Side

Pattern: Modified version of Cheryl and Paige's Modern Plus Sampler

Fabrics: Island Batik basics and solids

Batting: Hobbs 80/20 batting in black

Quilting: various free motion fillers, some threads Aurifil, some Connecting Threads

Techniques used: strip piecing, FMQ, machine binding

Size: approximately 56" square

Started: April 2019

Finished: May 2019

Future: TBD

Sharing at:
Wait Loss Wednesday
Needle and Thread Thursday
Put Your Foot Down
Brag About Your Beauties
May Favorite Finishes
What I Made Monday

On The Plus Side {Quilt Top + Quilting}

I had to do a *tiny* bit of finagling and planning to sew this top together because it isn't just a traditional grid, due to the tiny plus blocks surrounding the center five blocks. I first sewed the tiny plus blocks into sections, then sewed the sections of plus blocks to the larger strip blocks and rick rack blocks. From there I was able to sew things into rows, and then sew the rows together. I spent a significant amount of time thinking about how to press my blocks and attempting to have as many interlocking seams as possible and it was well worth the effort for this top.

Since this Island Batik Ambassador challenge is also sponsored by Hobbs batting, I pulled out my box-o-batting from my closet and decided on using some of the *black* batting for this project! I've never used a black batting before, and since my backing fabric is black, I thought this would be the perfect choice. As an Island Batik Ambassador, I am provided with samples of various lines of Island Batik fabrics, Aurifil thread, and Hobbs batting to use and share with you!

For the backing, I decided that I would use the remainder of the black batik solid for my backing on this project, since I am not planning to give this as a baby quilt. I had to do some quilty math to determine how to most efficiently piece the backing -- it has two seams instead of one, but it did actually stretch the fabric further this way.

I am planning to quilt this in a similar fashion to my Meadow quilt -- with various simple fillers from the center out, however, I will be using multiple colors of thread for this project. The only caveat to my (current) plan is that I am going to leave the white areas unquilted.

To start, I used a orangy-red Aurifil thread in the red and orange stripes of the center blocks to quilt simple dense loops.

Tomorrow I'll have the finish of this quilt to show off -- and it might look a little different than you might expect!

Happy Tuesday! Sharing at What I Made!

Orange You Glad {Modern May with Island Batik}

Today I'm showing off my last blocks for my Modern May challenge! As an Island Batik Ambassador, I am provided with samples of various lines of Island Batik fabrics and Hobbs batting to use and share with you!

My final blocks for this quilt top are my orange "rick rack" blocks. As a reminder, I'm using Cheryl and Paige's Modern Plus Sampler Pattern, with a few modifications. For the previous blocks, my big modification was strip piecing most of my block units, but for this block, I had some more significant changes.

Instead of having each rick rack section have three plus blocks, mine each have two. This is so that my sections will be square instead of rectangular. I picked three different orange fabrics and used a grey solid background.

Each of my blocks have one lighter orange plus block and one darker orange plus blocks. I added sashings on four sides to make my blocks the size that I need.

Next up will be putting my quilt top together and potentially start quilting it this weekend. I have a few ideas for doing the quilting and I am planning to use the rest of my black batik solid as the backing. 

What's your work in progress this lovely Wednesday? 

Sharing at Wait Loss Wednesday and Put Your Foot Down!

Black and White {Modern May with Island Batik}

Modern making continues in May for my Island Batik Ambassador project!

Like the first set of blocks that I made, I modified the directions for my next set of blocks -- a whole bunch of little plus blocks! -- to strip piece as much of the blocks as possible. Instead of using the white solid again in these blocks, I am using a yellow dotted white batik with the black solid.

Strip pieced sets above, subcut units ready to assemble below. I'm still trying to whittle down my collection of thread so for these units, I frequently had black thread in the top and white thread in the bobbin, or vice versa. 

Making these little blocks is an interesting change of pace from the other blocks I have been making lately!

Next up will be making some partial rick rack blocks for the corners and this will finish off my quilt top! I'm planning to make my final blocks orange with a grey background. This will allow me to use up some of the orange scraps that I have. I won't end up using any yellow in the quilt itself, but perhaps I'll use yellow for the binding.

I also saw an exciting sign while out running errands this weekend:

For those of you that might not know, I live pretty close to the middle of nowhere, and at least a 30-45 minute drive from any actual craft stores (or normal civilization), so this is a huge improvement. It might not be a full-service quilt shop within 10 minutes of my house, but it will, at the very least, have a better selection of sewing related craft supplies than our Walmart!

Paint The Town Red {Modern May with Island Batik}

This is my third year as an Island Batik Ambassador, and thus my third modern quilt challenge month. The first two years, I knew exactly what I wanted to make and what techniques to use -- the first year I made my Ombre Everest wall hanging, the second year I made my 30 Pearls wall hanging.

Rather than designing something entirely new, I decided that what I wanted to do was to use Cheryl and Paige's Modern Plus Sampler pattern. I didn't join in during their quilt along and was feeling major FOMO when their quilt parade started, so I figured the best way to fight FOMO was to drink the Kool-Aid and join in, albeit a little late!

So what am I going to do for my quilt? Paint the town red! (And orange, and maybe yellow too!)

My plan for this quilt is to have a very warm quilt using these batiks and also using the white, grey, and black solid batiks as the "neutrals" for the pattern. I'm going to skip the applique and paper pieced blocks to make only the traditionally pieced blocks. The quilt will be built from the center out, with the darkest reds and oranges used first and moving to lighter colors as the quilt grows.

The center most five blocks are striped double plus blocks. For these blocks, I used white as my background/solid, and used two shades of red and one shade of range for the piecing. I modified the piecing directions for these blocks to be able to strip piece as many of the block units as possible. First came the center little plus blocks:

Then I strip pieced the stripes:

And chopped up my stripes:

My units laid out and prepped for sewing into blocks:

And all five blocks completed:

The next set of blocks will be the smaller plus blocks that surround these five blocks. I'll be using the black solid and the yellow and white dot batik for those blocks.

What are your sewing plans for this weekend?

Sharing at Needle and Thread Thursday!