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!

Hobbs Natural Cotton Batting and Schmetz Microtex Needles were also used in the quilt.

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!