Tag Archives: Aurifil thread

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The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, Hobbs, and Aurifil.

This month's Island Batik challenge is Make It Modern with Hobbs. Last month for the AccuQuilt challenge I used my cool color scraps with a neutral background. This month, I decided to use my warm colored scraps, and initially intended to use a tan neutral background. I toyed with the idea of using the same layout and the AccuQuilt again, but eventually decided that I would piece a scrappy slab. I didn’t have a final layout in mind and just started sewing.

When I finished piecing almost all of my scraps I had a slab that measured approximately 32“ x 42“. Since I was shooting for a 40“ x 40“ quilt I had plenty to work with. Along the way I decided to swap out my tan neutral background, in favor of a solid black batik instead. I really love how the variety of warm colors pop against the black. I had realized that the light tones of the yellows were going to blend into the tan background more than I wanted them to.

My quilt back is color blocked, pieced from remnants of the Petting Zoo fabric collection that I used in a previous project, with a little more solid black.

And for my quilt top I opted for a simple overall layout with two wide vertical strips of my scrappy slab, and filled in the background with solid black.

The fiery palette was just asking for flame quilting. I chose three colors of Aurifil 50wt: Red (#2250), Burnt Orange (#1133), and Yellow (#2135). I searched for "line art of fire" on Google to get an idea for the shapes. Then I went for it. I started with the lowest row of red quilting, traveling in an uphill and then downhill direction across the quilt, then I echoed that line in the same color thread. I repeated paired lines of stitching across the quilt in each color. Last time I used Hobbs Tuscany 100% Wool I liked the puffy result of the higher loft, but felt that I hadn’t done the batting justice since my quilting had the same density across the whole project. This time I really wanted to have flatter areas and puffier areas. I switched gears from what was originally in my mind, but by doing a double row of stitching for each pass I created more texture than I would have had with single lines of stitching.

The back of the quilt really shows the texture so well.

Once the top was quilted and trimmed I started to think about binding. The easy option would have been a solid black binding for the whole quilt, but I couldn’t resist adding in some pieced binding and matching up with the piecing on the quilt top. I had a strip big enough from when I trimmed the quilt to be one edge of the binding though I had to adjust the width of each section since the quilt top had shrunk up a bit from the quilting. I had extra scrappy slab that I cut pieces from for the bottom edge of the binding. Lining everything up on the first pass of attaching the binding was a little tricky. I used pins at the seams so the binding would match up and worked backwards to the corners. I also opted to work with two pieces of binding that I would join on each of the two black sides. Finally, I had to decide what color to topstitch my machine binding. I really considered stitching black on black and orange on the scrappy sections, but decided in the end to use orange for the whole binding. This meant that the stitching would show up strongly on the black binding, but since I match my bobbin thread color to my top thread the orange thread on the bottom of the quilt would blend in more with the yellow orange and red I had used for quilting (and because most of the backing fabric is not black). Black stitching along the edge would have been more distracting on the quilt back. I used my basic machine binding technique.

I've been kind of lazy about quilt labels lately, but used my preferred method of making a label and attaching the label to the quilt back prior to quilting. I use a micron pen to do my writing. I realize now I forgot the name of the quilt: On Fire. I'll have to add that. ;-)

On Fire finishes at approximately 41" x 41".

Thanks for visiting! Be sure to check out the Make it Modern projects from the other Island Batik Ambassadors.

I'm linking up to TGIFF, Needle and Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, Beauties Pageant, and Favorite Finish.

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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.

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The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik and Aurifil.

This month we were asked to use a vintage quilt block as inspiration for our Island Batik Ambassador projects. I considered this challenge an opportunity to use Modern Traditionalism in my design, using a traditional block with some twist to modernize the look of it.

I chose the Antique Tile quilt block to work from. I shared my design process in a previous post, but these digital images show the block I started with and the mockup for the quilt that I made.

 

My fabrics are all Island Batik Foundations: Bermuda Cherio, Turquoise Small Pointed Floral, Lemon Round Petal Floral, and Cherry Bubbles.

It's nice when my thread collection contains just the right colors for a project. The project was pieced with Aurifil 50wt White (#2024) and quilted with Aurifil 50wt Jade (#4093), Light Lemon (#2110), and Red (#2250). (Ironically, I used Light Lemon to quilt my Modern Traditional Island Batik quilt last year.)

I used a walking foot for the teal lines of quilting and used free motion quilting for my flowers and jagged stipple.

The 36" x 36" quilt was finished with a faced binding. I chose this option so that the lines from my design would extend all the way to the edge.

I used the remnants of my four fabrics to make a color block backing for the quilt.

 

Please visit the other Island Batik Ambassadors to see their Vintage Reimagined projects from this month.

I'm linking up to Cheryl's first Favorite Finish Monthly Linkup for March. This is my favorite March Finish because I love the colors, the design, and the quilting. I'm also linking up to Brag About Your Beauties and Needle and Thread Thursday. :-)