Monday, August 30, 2021

Try a Tool Blog Hop and Giveaway

 

                                                                           Warp 4                                                                                                                                                     21 1/2" x 21 1/2"                                                                              Designed and made by Connie Kauffman

I hope you've been enjoying the Try a Tool Blog Hop with the Island Batik Ambassadors.   This is actually the very last day of the hop!   This month's challenge is with the Island Batik new Spring 2021 fabrics and rulers from Studio 180.


Each of the Ambassadors were given fabrics from one of the new Spring lines and a ruler from Deb Tucker's Studio 180.  The fabrics I received were from the Collection Sun Kissed Soleil.  This line was designed by Kathy Engle for Jackie Kunkel of Canton Village Quilt Works. This is a beautiful collection with 20 different fabrics.


The ruler I received from Studio 180 to work with is called Corner Beam.  This is a sweet little 3 piece block. 


What I think is the best thing about this ruler is that you can make the block in 11 different sizes from 1" to 6".  Many rulers out there only make one size, so this is a great ruler you can use multiple times.  I like to make small quilts so it is wonderful to find rulers that can be used to make small block sizes.

Another great thing about Studio 180 rulers is that they are made "slightly" bigger and then they are cut down to size.  What I like about this is the accuracy of the blocks and also how little fabric is wasted in making the blocks as the trimming really only cuts off a small sliver of excess fabric.

Here is a photo of three different sizes I tried using the Corner Beam block made with the Studio 180 ruler.  The blocks are 1", 2" and 3" finished sizes.


I ended up using 8 fabrics from the collection in my design, plus solid black and a green from the Flutter Fly collection as I wanted to pull out the green in a few of the fabrics.  I also used a great multi colored print from the collection for the backing.

Sometimes it is fun to take a whole collection and make a quilt using as many fabrics in the collection that you can.  This is great for a sort of scrappy, big, multi block quilt.   I wanted to make a small quilt with many of the corner beam blocks, so I was selective in what fabrics I picked from the collection for this project.  I'll let you in on a few thoughts of why I didn't select some of the other fabrics for this quilt.

Below are the fabrics I didn't use.

The first three on the left were similar in color and print to the three I had selected for the quilt.(See the photo above this one)  

The next three are black and white prints.  I already picked out a black and white print in stars  Two of these fabrics are actually pretty large prints- you loose the beauty of these designs when they are cut very small.

The orange and one of the black fabrics are the same printed design.  I hesitate to have the same design print as several fabrics in the same quilt, and I had that print in the multicolored fabric in the first photo. I also had decided on a solid black as it would stand out more in the quilt, so I didn't need the two black on black fabrics.

The last two fabrics are lovely multi colored prints.  These also do not show up well when cut into small pieces unless you are doing something scrappy.

These are all wonderful fabrics that will be put back for future projects and also the giveaway at the end of the blog.

The quilt uses two sizes of the Corner Beam block.  A three inch size in the center of the quilt and 2" sizes in the other corners.  Having some different colors in the blocks was a bit more challenging than the general directions.  I also realized that some of the cutting of long strips wasn't necessary when you were only making a few blocks of each color.  I hate to waste fabric, so had to think a bit so I didn't cut off more fabric than needed.


I added prairie points to the border and buttons for extra embellishments.


Do you ever have trouble naming your quilts?  I make a lot of quilts and sometimes I run out of ideas for names.  This time my kids were home and we had a brain storming of what to name this quilt.  Some ideas tossed out were that it had lots of stars- so "Starry, Starry Night" was one name.  The stars, the arrows pointing in and the corner beams got them thinking of space and motion and - STAR TREK!  Thus the name Warp 4 evolved.  Do you think it fits?

One of the Island Batik sponsors is Aurifil thread and I used 4 different colored spools with this quilt.  The colors matched wonderfully.


Other sponsors - Schmetz Micro Tex needles and Hobbs Cotton batting were also used in this project.

GIVEAWAY
I have a giveaway of  three half yard cuts of Sun Kissed Soleil.  Please leave a comment below and make sure that I am able to contact you if you are the winner.  US entries only due to postage.  Usually I draw a winner at the end of the hop - but today is the last day!  I'll wait to draw a winner for a few days- but enter soon!


If you received this blog post via email and Mail Chimp- you may not see the comment line until you open the post in your browser (there is a link at the end of the blog post). This has happened since I had to move my subscriber list from Feed Burner to Mail Chimp.

Be sure and check out the Island Batik blog for their last giveaway for the hop- a drawing for a stack of Peacock Plumes and a strip pack of Free to Fly.  They are beautiful!




*Thanks to Island Batik, Studio 180, Aurifil , Hobbs Batting and Schmetz Needles for suppling product for this project thru the Island Batik Ambassador program.












26 comments:

  1. Warp 4 is a good name for the quilt. 24Tangent@gmail.com

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  2. Connie, your quilt is so awesome. I LOVE the design and the addition of the prairie points. The fabrics really sparkle. Thank you for sharing today.

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  3. Your quilt is a real stunner! I love the way the colors contrast with the black and white print, and the design is gorgeous. This is my favorite of the quilts on the hop - the best for last! pk_sews at yahoo dot com

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  4. What a fun quilt. I love the fabrics you choose and of course the awesome Corner Beam!

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  5. What a way to end the blog hop! Your quilt is great eye candy, and the name is spot on! Thanks for sharing your process for fabric choices.
    Connie

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  6. wow your quilt is gorgeous. I just love how all the fabrics play so well together. Connie W is so right- your quilt is really eye candy for inspiration. Thanks for sharing and ending the wonderful hop on such a lovely note. I love this tool and the way that there is so little scrap fabric.
    quilting dash lady at comcast dot net

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  7. Kathy R., your quilt is great. You can follow the star points out to the edge, a real eye catcher. petuniakr@aol.com

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  8. Your quilt is beautiful! I love the colors you chose.

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  9. Thanks for writing your rationale for not choosing certain fabrics. That was helpful advice for future quilting.
    Like the boldness of your quilt!

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  10. I like the way the star keeps expanding towards the edges. It does remind me of warp speed!

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  11. Great use of the fabric collection. Love seeing all the inspiration from each designer.

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  12. That design is perfect for those colors. Thank you for explaining your choices.

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  13. This is gorgeous! Perfect name god the quilt.

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  14. I love it Connie. And I especially like the ruler because you can make multiple sizes. I will definitely give this a try. mmsm@embarqmail.com

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  15. Beautiful quilt. Sounds like a great name to me.

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  16. How awesome both your
    quilt and it's name is!
    Love Star Trek and this
    fits nicely. Great design
    and colors.
    Carla from Arizona

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  17. The arrangement of colors and fabrics really make this quilt pop. It makes me want to make a medallion quilt.

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  18. Love your colors, they make the quilt look like it is alive. The name fits it. cindy.keence@sbcglobal.net

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  19. Your design looks incredible with the fabrics.

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  20. I absolutely love your quilt! So colorful!
    nikilsend(at)outlook(dot)com

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  21. Warp 4 is a beautiful quilt Connie. It does show off the pretty IB fabrics wonderfully. 😉

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  22. I love that you named this quilt "Star Trek". I had aunt who was a real Trekkie. She's been gone for 40 years--can you imagine that? It seems impossible. Still, every time I see something fabulous that refers to Star Trek, I think of Aunt Susie, who was pretty extra, and left a lasting impression on her nieces and nephew.

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  23. What a beautiful quilt! ... soparkaveataoldotcom

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  24. Beautiful quilt! stitchingwithsue@gmaildotcom

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