The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, AccuQuilt, Hobbs, and Aurifil.
The April challenge was to use the AccuQuilt Ready. Set. GO! to create a 40" to 48" square baby quilt using AccuQuilt Dies. I asked people on Instagram to vote on my fabric selection for this project. I pulled a rainbow of scraps, but then I also liked the green/blue subset. The green/blue palette was the overwhelming winner.
The Ready. Set. GO! collection includes the GO! Qube 8" Mix & Match Block which is a set of 8 dies in a variety of geometric shapes for making 8" finished blocks. I used dies 1, 2, and 4 for cutting all my green and blue squares and triangles as well as my 4 1/2" background squares. I appreciated how fast and easy it was to cut out the pieces for my scrappy project. I look forward to teaching my kids how to use the AccuQuilt, because it's easy enough for them to use (and I currently do all the cutting for their quilts).
I'm drawn to quilts with expansive negative space, like my Island Batik quilt from last April. I used Rice (from the Island Batik Neutral Foundation Basics) for my background and used my favorite design tool for creating my quilt design: graph paper. The cutting was fast and easy. The piecing was fast and easy. I decided to have fun with free motion quilting this one, using a variety of motifs in the different sections of the quilt. I like to take a photo of the quilt top and markup the image with potential quilting motifs on my phone. Here's my initial sketch.
I didn't think too much about how hard the wishbone quilting in the center background sections would be. Given that the width of that section varies from about 6 to 11 inches wide, these are very long wishbones. It started out a little dicey, but overall I'm pleased with the look. In general, I like organic quilting and don't strive for perfection when quilting. Precision sometimes, but not perfection.
This was the first project I used my new free motion quilting foot on and it went very well. I am loving the visibility of the open toe, and the hopping foot went from distracting to "the new normal" pretty quickly. This is a serious step up from the darning foot I've been using to free motion quilt for 7 years! I used 50wt Aurifil Light Grey Turquoise (#2805) from the Pastel collection for my quilting.
I chose Hobbs Heirloom Premium cotton batting. The 45" x 60" size crib batting was perfect for my 40" x 40" quilt.
In the end, the quilt reminds me a bit of nautical signal flags, though that wasn't at all my inspiration. I'm toying with making another version in warm colors for my May project, though I'll likely decide to do something else
I had nearly enough of my remnant Rice binding from my Fortune Teller quilt and added scraps from the cut off edges of my quilt backing to lengthen the binding. A little hard to see in the photo above, but the two blue and green sections of binding are on the upper right and lower left corners of the quilt.
Please visit the other Island Batik Ambassadors to see their AccuQuilt Ready. Set. GO! Challenge Baby Quilts from this month.
I'm linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday and TGIFF.
