Island Batik Ambassador - Try it Challenge

The month of June's Challenge was called "Try it!"  I wasn't sure what project I was going to do until Spring Market. Deb Tucker Studio 180 Design announced the newest tool, "Wedge Star," and I was going to learn how to use it at the Certified Instruction annual training event in June.  Then I knew what I wanted to do right away for my challenge project.

So, I looked through my Island Batik collection of fabrics and found four different fabrics I needed to make for the Free pattern located on the back of the instructions of the new tool.  All four fabrics colors are from the Island Batik Basic Collection.  The colors I used in this project are Valentino, Plum, Mardigras, and Grey.  All the fabrics except for the grey were purchased at "Annie's Quilt Shop" in Shelton Washington, while I was visiting my mom in February.  I just fell in love with the fabric combination.

The Wedge Star™ Tool was designed to make traditional Kaleidoscope Blocks.  You can make 22 different sizes, ranging from 3" finished to 24" finished.  The Instructions comes with instructions on how to make three basic blocks.  

Using the tool is very easy to cut out your wedge and Diamond Shapes.  I like to use paper plates to organize my pieces and fabrics for my projects. 

Once you have all your diamonds and small wedges cut out it is highly recommended to lay out your pieces so you can easily access them and keep organized as you piece the diamond and wedge shapes together.  

Not only is the tool used for cutting out your shapes. It is also used for trimming down your oversized pieces.  The process is very similar to your Rapid Fire® Lemoyne Star pieces.

Another block you can make is the Mixed Block Wedge Block where you sew Large Wedges and Diamond Wedges together.  You finish up the block with adding triangles around the corners and trimming to size using your Tucker Trimmer® III Tool.

The Wedge Star™ Tool is a fun tool to use, and I love making the blocks with the great Island Batik Basic Fabrics. I hope you will give it a try sometime, you can purchase the tool from your local quilt shop or visit the Studio 180 Design website.   I should note when making the projects that I use Auriful 50wt thread. I finished my quilt using Hobbs Heirloom Natural Cotton Batting.  

Now it is time to start thinking about my next Island Batik Project for the July.  Also, be sure to check out the other Island Batik Ambassador blogs list below. 

Carolina Asmussen ~Carolina Asmussen

Gene Black ~ Gene Black

Pamela Boatright ~ PamelaQuilts

Connie K Campbell ~ Freemotion by the River

Anja Clyke ~ Anja Quilts

Tina Dillard ~ Quilting Affection Designs

Becca Fenstermaker ~Pretty Piney

Jennifer Fulton ~ Inquiring Quilter

Barbara Gaddy ~ Bejeweled Quilts by Barb

Dione Gardner-Stephen ~ Clever Chameleon

Sarah Goer ~ Sarah Goer Quilts

Vasudha Govindan ~ Storied Quilts

Lori Haase ~ Dakota City Quilter II

Joanne Hart ~ Unicornharts

Mania (Magdalini) Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for Quilts

Carla Henton ~ Creatin in the Sticks

Stephanie Jacobson ~ Steph Jacobson Designs

Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs

Joan Kawano ~ Moosestash Quilting

Kim Lapacek ~ Persimon Dreams

Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood

Leanne Parsons ~ Devoted Quilter

Bea Lee ~ BeaQuilter

Toby Lischko ~ Gateway Quilts & Stuff

Bill Locke ~ Studio Bill Locke

Denise Looney ~ For the Love of Geese

Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights

Sally Manke ~ Sally Manke

Maryellen McAuliffe ~ Mary Mack's Blog

Kathleen McCormick ~ Kathleen McMusing

Carol Moellers ~ Carol Moellers Designs

Karen Neary ~ Sew Karen-ly Created

Lisa Nielsen ~ Lisa Lisa and the Quilt Jam

Jackie O’Brien ~ If These Threads Could Talk

Laura Piland ~ Slice of Pi Quilts

Michelle Roberts ~ Creative Blonde

Vicki Schlimmer ~ Vicki's Crafts and Quilting

Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail

Sherry Shish ~ Powered by Quilting

Anita Skjellanger ~ Quilt in a not-Shell

Laticia "Tish" Stemple ~ Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

Jennifer Strauser ~ Dizzy Quilter

Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations

Terri Vanden Bosch ~ Lizard Creek Quilts

Alison Vermilya ~ Little Bunny Quilts

Sandra Walker ~ mmm! quilts

Suzy Webster ~ Adventurous Applique and Quilting

(Debora) Anne Wiens ~ Seams like a Plan

Geraldine Wilkins ~ Living Water Quilter

Janet Yamamoto ~  Whispers of Yore

See you next month,

Tina

"Designs to Inspire"

Island Batik Ambassador - Hobbs Modern Challenge

May's challenge for the Island Batik Ambassadors was to create a Modern Quilt that was used Hobbs Batting.  

There are lots of different interpretations of a Modern Quilt.  The Modern Quilt Guild defines a Modern Quilt as the following, “We define modern quilts as quilts that are functional, include bold colors, and are inspired by modern design. Minimalism, asymmetry expansive negative space, and alternate grid work are often a part of modern quilt compositions, as are improvisational piecing and solid fabrics.”

Many of the Modern Quilts are pieced quilts,  I took my Modern a different direction, I did mine as a raw edge applique quilt.   The batting and the fabrics I used in this quilt were given to me by Hobbs Batting and Island Batik.  The Island Batik Fabrics I used was leftover fabric from the Fall 2018, Ditty Collection. 

I designed this modern quilt myself using the Sue Pelland Designs, Hearts, and More Templates.  If you are not familiar with the Sue Pelland Designs templates, they are applique templates for rotary cutting using a 28mm cutter to cut around the curves.  The Hearts and More Templates allows you to cut applique pieces, such as Hearts, Circles, Paisley, and so much more.  This is the first time that I got to play with this set of templates, and it was so much fun.

My design for this quilt was to make three different panels.  These panels will have Hearts and Circles of different sizes floating around in the panels. 

Sue Pelland recommends fusing MistyFuse Fusible webbing on the back due to the softness and thinness of the fusible webbing.  With MisyFuse you fuse it to the back of your fabric before you cut. 

Once your MistyFuse is cooled and not tacky you can then start cutting your shapes with your templates. 

Once all my pieces were cut and placed on my long panels I then pressed them down with a hot iron.

Next, I tacked the shapes down with a nice blanket stitch with my Auriful Thread that matches perfectly.  

Once the panels applique was done, I then added thin strips in between the three panels to piece them together.

Now it was time to do a little ruler work on the longarm using the Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Bleached cotton batting since my quilt was mainly white.

I had a hard time deciding on a type of quilting design I want to do on it.  I finally decided to do random swirling lines throughout the quilt top.  Finishing off with the same color of binding as the middle strip pieces.   

This quilt was so much fun to make and I loved playing with the Sue Pelland Rotary Cut Applique templates and look forward to doing more with them in the future.

June challenges are just around the corner, but if you would like to catch up on all the other Island Batik Ambassador projects for the May you can click on the links below.  

Carolina Asmussen ~Carolina Asmussen

Gene Black ~ Gene Black

Pamela Boatright ~ PamelaQuilts

Connie K Campbell ~ Freemotion by the River

Anja Clyke ~ Anja Quilts

Tina Dillard ~ Quilting Affection Designs

Becca Fenstermaker ~Pretty Piney

Jennifer Fulton ~ Inquiring Quilter

Barbara Gaddy ~ Bejeweled Quilts by Barb

Dione Gardner-Stephen ~ Clever Chameleon

Sarah Goer ~ Sarah Goer Quilts

Vasudha Govindan ~ Storied Quilts

Lori Haase ~ Dakota City Quilter II

Joanne Hart ~ Unicornharts

Mania (Magdalini) Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for Quilts

Carla Henton ~ Creatin in the Sticks

Stephanie Jacobson ~ Steph Jacobson Designs

Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs

Joan Kawano ~ Moosestash Quilting

Kim Lapacek ~ Persimon Dreams

Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood

Leanne Parsons ~ Devoted Quilter

Bea Lee ~ BeaQuilter

Toby Lischko ~ Gateway Quilts & Stuff

Bill Locke ~ Studio Bill Locke

Denise Looney ~ For the Love of Geese

Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights

Sally Manke ~ Sally Manke

Maryellen McAuliffe ~ Mary Mack's Blog

Kathleen McCormick ~ Kathleen McMusing

Carol Moellers ~ Carol Moellers Designs

Karen Neary ~ Sew Karen-ly Created

Lisa Nielsen ~ Lisa Lisa and the Quilt Jam

Jackie O’Brien ~ If These Threads Could Talk

Laura Piland ~ Slice of Pi Quilts

Michelle Roberts ~ Creative Blonde

Vicki Schlimmer ~ Vicki's Crafts and Quilting

Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail

Sherry Shish ~ Powered by Quilting

Anita Skjellanger ~ Quilt in a not-Shell

Laticia "Tish" Stemple ~ Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

Jennifer Strauser ~ Dizzy Quilter

Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations

Terri Vanden Bosch ~ Lizard Creek Quilts

Alison Vermilya ~ Little Bunny Quilts

Sandra Walker ~ mmm! quilts

Suzy Webster ~ Adventurous Applique and Quilting

(Debora) Anne Wiens ~ Seams like a Plan

Geraldine Wilkins ~ Living Water Quilter

Janet Yamamoto ~  Whispers of Yore

See you next month,

Tina

"Designs to Inspire"

2018 Master the Rulers: Studio 180 Design Blockbuster #16

Well, today we return to start the Blockbuster series 2, blocks #15-25 that means we will be done with series 2 in ten weeks and I have a feeling they will go fast just like the first series did.

Blockbuster #16, Peaks & Valleys uses the combination of the Studio 180 Design Diamond Rect® tool and the SideKick/High-Low Technique Sheet to make this block.  I again used the same Island Batik Fabrics that were used in Blockbuster #15, just adding coordinating fabric to the mix.

I began with making the four diamond rectangles, by cutting out the centers and the side triangles with my Diamond Rect® tool. Once they were all cut out, I sew them together, just as I did in blockbuster #15.

My diamond rectangles were now complete.  Time to get started on the next step the High-Low Units. 

I have made the High-Low units in blockbuster #10 the twisted pinwheel block. Making the High-Low units are relatively simple, you just need to pay attention to the direction your slant must go. These units use the "V" Block® trimmer.  I need to make a total of four units that slanted to the right.

Finally, I completed the units by making some four sidekick units, followed by cutting some large and small squares for the corners and the center of the block. 

 Now I was ready to layout the units to begin the assembly.

I started with the center block assembly first.  To do this, I need to sew a partial seam using the small center square and one of the sides of the Diamond Rectangles. This is very similar to how we put the Shuriken blockbuster #14 together.

Then I continued to work, sewing the diamond rectangles together. The last step was to stitch the partial seam to the last diamond rectangle.

The center is complete, now I can finish it by stitching all the pieces together and assembling them to the center block.

Blockbuster #16, Peaks and Valleys is finished.  This was another fun, block to make due to it helped me reinforce everything I have learned in the first series of blocks fresh in my mind.  

Tina

"Designing to Inspire"

You can check out my completed Blockbuster blocks HERE.

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