Monday, May 24, 2021

Quilt Garden Nappanee Indiana

 Every year my town Nappanee in Indiana plants a quilt garden.  I also design a wall quilt that has the garden design in the center of the quilt.  It hangs in the visitor center that is right behind the garden.  This year the garden is called Sweet Apples and has the images of 4 apples, 2 of which have bites out of them.

We planted the garden on a couple very hot days last week.  It's always a challenge to plant such a big garden.  Here you can see me planting red begonias that will be one of the apples.  The garden is on an incline which is nice for viewing.  It takes a LOT of flowers!



Here is the fully planted garden.  It has a lot of growing to do, to fill out all the spaces.  It will be lovely in a few weeks.


This is my quilt for the Sweet Apples garden.  I was happy to find the border fabric with all the apples.


*The winner of my Pumpkin Delight 10" squares is GranChris.  She has been contacted and the blocks are on the way to her.


Tuesday, May 18, 2021

May Quilt Modern! Blog Hop

 

Thanks to Island Batik, Aurifil Thread, Hobbs Batting and Schmetz needles for suppling the products for this project thru the Island Batik Ambassador program

The May Island Batik Blog Hop challenge was to make a Modern quilt.  Modern quilts can vary widely, but do have a few characteristics.  

A modern quilt can have:   Large pieces

                                           Lots of negative space

                                           Solid fabrics

                                           Quilting can vary from extremely dense to very geometric quilting

I was given the Island Batik fabric spring collection called  Pumpkin Delight designed by  Kathy Engle.


This collection is great for a spooky fall themed project.   Take a closer look at just a few of the great themed fabrics.  Do they get you in the mood for Halloween?



Pumpkin Delight has 20 fabrics in the collection and I used 16 of them in my quilt plus extra white batik.

The fabrics reminded me of Halloween- of spooky nights and pumpkin fields.  I decided to use the bird in the tree fabric as sort of a focal-background print.  I used as much of the fabric as I could.  Many of the orange fabrics had pumpkins printed on them.  I decided to use those prints and the rest of the fabrics in snowball blocks to sort of represent round pumpkins.   The darker black fabrics evolved from snowball blocks into a surprise- see if you can figure them out.

I named the quilt Visitors to the Pumpkin Patch.  That's a hint to the surprise.  Do you see any visitors besides the birds?  I know it's a stretch - but do you see all the black cat (heads) hiding in the quilt?


Visitors to the Pumpkin Patch
By Connie Kauffman
49" x 56"

Here is a photo where I'm deciding the layout.  You can see the ears of the cats easily here.


I just had to take a full quilt photo outside after dark to get the full spooky effect.   Of course you can see the scary looking birds perched in the trees and maybe now you can see the black cats that are hiding in the pumpkin patch.  What is Halloween in the dark of night without a black cat...or two...or 12!


Straight line quilting made quilting a the top a breeze.  I used a light orange Aurifil Thread for the quilting.  For the first time ever I machine quilted my binding with a decorative stitch.  I used black Aurifil and you couldn't really see the stitching on the binding fabric which was okay.  It did go really fast!





I'm all set for a cozy Halloween now.


The Blog Hop continues thru May.  Be sure and check out the other Island Batik Ambassadors to see the other new fabrics and projects.

Island Batik is having a drawing so be sure and check it out and enter.

My prize drawing is for a set of 10" blocks.  There are 2 squares of 17 different fabrics in the Pumpkin Delight Collection - 34 squares in all.  What would you make with this nice stack?  

Leave a comment below to enter.  USA entrants only due to postage.  Winner will be drawn at the end of the Blog Hop.  Be sure that I can contact you if you win.


Happy Haunting!










Monday, May 17, 2021

Quilt Modern Blog Hop Week 3

This is week 3 and the final week of our Quilt Modern Blog Hop with the Island Batik Ambassadors.  Listed below you can see who is posting each day and what fabric lines they will be presenting.

*Special note- Tuesday is my day!   Be sure and check in!

 May 17:

May 18:

May 19:


Monday, May 10, 2021

Quilt Modern Blog Hop Week 2

 I hope you enjoyed week one of the Quilt Modern Blog Hop with the Island Batik Ambassadors   Listed below are the blogs that were posted last week and the ones that are coming up this week, and the great fabrics they are presenting. Check them out!

May 3:

May 4:

May 5:

May 6:

May 7:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 1 and Giveaway

May 10:

May 11:

May 12:

May 13:

May 14:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 2 and Giveawa


For week 2 Island Batik is having a drawing of 2 precut packages of Glacier Bay fabrics by Kathy Engle.  These are really lovely blues!




Be sure and go to the Island Batik Blog to enter for these great fabrics!

Saturday, May 1, 2021

May Quilt Modern Blog Hop

Happy May Day!  It's a beautiful sunny day here in northern Indiana and I hope you are having a lovely day too!

Today starts the beginning of the Quilt Modern Island Batik Ambassadors Blog Hop.


This month will be filled with all the Island Batik Ambassadors sharing their modern projects with the new Island Batik fabric collections and products from our sponsors Aurifil, Hobbs Quilt Batting, Schmetz Needles and AccuQuilt.

Be sure and check out the list below to see all the Ambassadors and what day they are posting.  The fabrics are all from the Winter Collections that will be appearing in your stores in May.

May 3:

May 4:

May 5:

May 6:

May 7:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 1 and Giveaway

May 10:

May 11:

May 12:

May 13:

May 14:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 2 and Giveaway

May 17:

May 18:

May 19:


There are sure to be lots of giveaways from the Ambassadors and be sure to go to the Island Batik blog and enter their giveaway each week.  This week's giveaway is a bundle and strip pack of the beautiful collection called Forecast

Be sure to enter the Island Batik Blog each week for a different giveaway!