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!

Summer on the Coast {Finished Quilt}

I'll fully admit that there were multiple times where I completely forgot that this quilt top was done and ready to quilt! I finished the top in July 2016 and this quilt was one I designed for a mystery quilt along I hosted. I actually bought the backing fabric for this quilt in July 2017 at the same time I bought the backing fabric for my Meadow quilt and my Green in Bloom quilt.

Here's the quilt top from when I finished it:

This design was inspired by combining a traditional Storm at Sea block with pinwheels. I sent the quilt and backing home with my mom the last time she came to visit with the instructions to "do with it as she pleased." The reason this top sat for so long unquilted and unfinished is that I didn't know how to quilt it so it was probably the right decision to make someone else decide how to quilt it!

Here's the preview pictures my mom posted on Instagram:

The finished quilt is lovely!

The quilting is all different sorts of echoing of the block shapes. The backing is an old Moda print from the Farmer's Market line. I love the diagonal vines -- it makes the binding look fantastic!

This will likely become my new "mobile quilt" -- the quilt that I keep in the car for picnics and other activities!

Quilt Stats:
Name: Summer on the Coast
Pattern: Summer on the Coast (designed by me!)
Fabrics: random stash fabrics (backing/binding is Moda)
Techniques: paper piecing
Quilting: rulerwork echo quilting by my mom
Size: 60 inches square
Started: March 2016
Finished: May 2018

Sharing at Let's Bee Social and Needle and Thread Thursday!

Tips and Tutorials Festival Kick-Off!

Today is the kick-off of the Tips and Tutorials Festival hosted by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs and Yvonne of Quilting JetGirl!

Honey, Bunny, and Doll is one of the sponsors of the "Block Patterns and Tutorials" category and the winner will receive four PDF patterns from us!

I'll be linking up some of my tutorials as well! Here's the ones I am entering:

Block Tutorials:
Red Pinwheels from the Blocked Rainbow QAL
Ohio Star Mini Quilt

Sewing Tutorials:
Making Wonky Crosses in Bulk

Sewn or Quilted Items Tutorials:
Pocket Wall Hanging

If you're interested in participating or checking out all of the tutorials, visit Meadow Mist Designs or Quilting JetGirl! Hats off to them for organizing a great new event!

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!

Coast to Coast Bee 2.0 {Karen's Quilt}

For this round of the Coast to Coast Traveling Bee, I worked on Karen's quilt. Here's what Audrey sent to me:

Karen created the Storm at Sea center, Chelsea added the checkerboard corners, and Audrey added the striped corner sections.

I decided that I wanted to add a border around what Audrey added instead of another set of corner sections to turn the quilt top on point. I settled on adding a diamond chain border around the quilt, with the same sized colored squares that Chelsea used in her checkerboard sections. I found a great cream print with white feathers to use as my background at my LQS while my mom was in town visiting.

Getting the side sections together was very quick and I was able to cut each section to about 5.5 inches wide. I used one of the purple fabrics for squares in the corners.

Here's a close up I used as a teaser on Instagram, which shows the low volume feather print quite well!

Now this top is on its way to Stephanie to work on and I'll be receiving Stephanie's quilt for our last round of quilts this year! My quilt (or rather, my rows) will be coming back to me sometime in July!

Sharing at Needle and Thread Thursday and Oh Scrap!