Tag Archives: mini quilt

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

This month we were asked to create a quilt to adorn a table for the holidays. We were required to use appliqué, though our project could be any size. My Fall table topper finished at approximately 20" square. I used Hobbs Thermore batting. It's a super low loft 100% Polyester batting, which should keep my table topper nice and flat.

I chose pumpkin orange batiks to create a scrappy slab for the pumpkin. This included Cheddar as well as a couple from the Island Batik Clockworks collection. (The background and stem are from Clockworks, too!)

I used the snowball technique for adding background triangles to the corners of my rectangular scrappy slab and pieced in a brown stem. My technique is basically the same as my pumpkin tutorial from earlier this month, with a slightly different stem. To fulfill the requirement of having appliqué in my project I chose Bubbles in Chartreuse to make a pumpkin leaf. A quick online search helped me with the general shape of a pumpkin leaf. I used Heat and Bond Lite to raw-edge fusible appliqué my leaf onto the otherwise completed quilt top. My top stitching on the leaf was done as quilting. I chose to mimic the look of the veins of the leaf.

I was lucky enough to come home from Quilt Market with the Island Batik Solstice collection of 40wt Aurifil thread. It had the perfect options for me to consider using for this project. The first image below shows Brass (#2975), Light Cinnamon (#2335) , and Dark Brown (#5024), and beneath that a peak inside the whole box.

 

My selections strike me as an odd mix of colors for my quilting. I ended up with four colors in three different weights. It's amazing how on their own I never would have put these colors together, but when considering what blends best in each section of the quilt, these four were the right choices!

Light Leaf Green (#1147) was the perfect color for the leaf. I had it in various weights in my thread collections and opted to use the 28wt to outline the leaf and stitch the vein pattern. Dark Brown (#5024) was a great choice for my echo quilting inside the stem.

I opted for Brass (#2975) for quilting the pumpkin. I started by echoing inside the border of the pumpkin, then filled it with spirals (my favorite free motion motif!). Finally, I chose Pale Green (#2880) from my stash for quilting the background. First, an echo line around the pumpkin, then zig zag meander to fill in the entire background. I'm not sure if I've shared about it on the blog, but I'm loving my new-ish open toe free motion foot. Total game changer!

Have I mentioned how I love the gears on the background fabric!?

 

I was excited to enjoy this quilt on Halloween and look forward to its continued use throughout the rest of the Fall, including Thanksgiving.

 

Check out what the other Ambassadors are topping their tables with 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 Aurifil, and their industry partner Paintbrush Studio Fabrics.

As an Aurifil Artisan, I have monthly challenges to participate in this year. The August challenge was to create a wholecloth quilt. (My first!) Paintbrush Studio Painter’s Palette solid fabric (from their 2019 colors of the year) and matching Aurifil thread was provided to each participating Artisan. I received Coral fabric (it's a very pink coral) with 12wt Bright Pink Aurifil (#2425).

My initial plan was to add a couple other pastels to have some color variety in my quilting. (I changed my mind.)

Inspired by my June mini quilt, I opted for creating sections on my quilt with organic curve walking foot quilting in the Aurifil 12wt Bright Pink (#2425), with 40wt in the bobbin. I decided to add an echo line of stitching for each curve. Then I picked a variety of free motion fillers for the six sections in Aurifil 40wt Light Peony (#2437). I wanted a variety of curved and angular motifs.

 

Section one features one of my go to FMQ motifs: spirals! I use this one often. Fandangle Scrappy Squares and Modern Batik Scrappy Squares come to mind as two quilts I've quilted with spirals.

Section two has another favorite, a jagged stipple.

In section three, I used a nesting C motif that I last used on the mini that inspired this quilt.

In section four, I did two rows of boxy overlapping loops. (I want to call these boxy spirals, but they really aren't spirals. What would you call them?)

Section five has free motion echo lines radiating in from the initial walking foot quilting.

Section six had a triangle meander, which I previously shared in a blog tutorial.

 

I backed my quilt with some white on white from my stash and bound by machine (visit my tutorial to see my technique) using Aurifil 50wt Baby Pink (#2423).

I love the texture of the quilting!

My wholecloth mini finished at 17" x 22". I used a remnant of Quilter's Dream 100% Cotton Deluxe batting from this quilt.

You can find the chart of matching Painter's Palette solid fabric and Aurifil thread colors not the Paintbrush Studio website.

Thank you to Aurifil and Paintbrush Studios for the fun challenge!

I've linked up to the Q3 Finish Along Finishes post. Check out my whole Q3 list of projects.

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

This month our Island Batik challenge was to try something new. There are so many options in the quilting world to try a new technique or tool. I was inspired by my friend Gayle’s recent quilt project where she used Fabric Magic on her quilt top. Here's one of her textured flowers:

 

Fabric Magic is a polyester fabric that "shrinks up to 30% when steam-activated." The way it works is that it is stitched to the back of a single layer of fabric in straight lines or free motion stitching. Then you apply steam (without touching the iron to the polyester fabric) and the Fabric Magic shrinks up and causes the quilting cotton to wrinkle up. Different density or types of stitching will achieve different results.

The Peach, Flame, and Tangy fabrics are from the Island Batik Basics line. I chose these as a starting point so I could submit this piece for the 2019 Pantone Quilt Challenge. The teal I added is a Cherio print (BE21-G1) from the Blenders line. I used Fabric Magic on three panels and, in true try it fashion, opted to use different free motion motifs on each.

The first, and my favorite, was back and forth wavy lines on the diagonal, stitched with Aurifil 50wt Fleshy Pink (#2420) on the Peach fabric. I think in addition to it being my preferred motif for ease of stitching and pattern of texture it creates, the technique just shows up better on lighter fabric due to being able to see the shadows from the texture more easily. The stitched area shrunk up from 17" wide to approximately 14 1/2" wide, about a 15% shrinkage.

My second section was pebbles on my teal panel with Aurifil 50wt Jade (#4093).

And my last section was spirals on the Flame fabric with Aurifil 50wt Red Orange (#2245). I didn't make a panel on the Tangy fabric since I didn't have a thread color that would blend well.

At this point I used my textured and non-textured fabrics to cut sections with smooth, gentle improv curves. I initially considered the sections to be horizontal, but decided in the end to rotate the quilt so they were in a vertical layout. I felt this orientation both worked better with the finished dimensions, and also gave a feel of coral and seaweed in the ocean.

I used a remnant of Quilter’s Dream Select 100% cotton batting that was just about the perfect size. Since I was working on a small quilt and intended to stitch on either side of each seam to stabilize the quilt before more quilting I opted not to baste. (Channeling Dora Cary!). I echoed each side of the curved seam on each non-textured fabric. (The textured sections did not get quilted, but if used in a larger section one could do some quilting on top of the previous stitching lines.) After my echo stitching, I chose nesting C curves, inspired by Mel Beach’s recent finish. I used overlapping curved lines on the two end sections.

I used the rest of the piece of Tangy fabric to make binding, knowing that I'd have way more than I needed and will utilize it on a future project. Isn't it so cute on my Binding Baby!? Usually I favor machine binding, but due to the textured sections I opted for a hand bound finish.

Living Coral finished at 22" x 13 1/2".

 

Be sure to check out what the other Island Batik Ambassadors are trying out this month!

This is also my contribution to the 2019 Pantone Quilt Challenge in the Minis category. (I'm in the USA.) And, it's my OMG for June (which I'll try to remember to linkup with the finishes at the end of the month). ;-)

I've linked up to June Favorite Finish and Beauties Pageant.

Thanks for visiting!