Third Island Batik Box

 Island Batik sent the Ambassadors a third box of goodness last month.  These things were not available in time to include in the first two boxes we received.  

Oh my!  Aren't these lovely!  

The bundle on the left is yardage in solid black, white and the dark gray.  This is the first time they've sent the dark gray and it will be great to work with. 

 On the right is a 10" stack of the collection called Vintage Charm.  This is a lovely assortment of springy colors with some touches of white.  They included 2 yards of light and dark fabrics to coordinate with the Vintage Charm.  The dark fabric is from the Precious Pinks Foundation fabrics and is called Sangria.  The light pink is also from the Precious Pinks Foundation fabrics and is called Tea Rose.  Such great names!

The three packages of rolls of fabric are their Stash Builder Rolls.  These rolls are a great way to add variety to your fabric collection.  Each roll has four strips of fabric that are 5" by width of fabric.  There is 2.8 yards in each package.

Many thanks again to Island Batik!

It''s All Up To You - August Island Batik Challenge

               

                                                  Love Those Scraps! or A Lot a Littles!

                                                                    33" x 39"

The month of August is a free month for the Island Batik Ambassadors.  This month we were free to do whatever we wanted.  Wow!  That is a real treat!  There are so  many times that we're inspired by fabrics and have some great ideas, but they don't fit into the regular challenges.  So now we have a chance to do our own thing.

This month I'm showcasing a quilt I made with tiny little leftover Island Batik scraps.  I had tons of little squares and also tons of triangles.  What to do with them?    They are just to pretty to throw out. I found a block  design I liked that Bonnie Hunter has used that had 2 nine patch blocks and two half square triangle blocks. I decided to make nine patch blocks and half square triangle blocks and work on the layout later.  Here was a trial layout with a few blocks.

So I started trimming up a gazillion colored squares to size and cutting many squares from Island Batik white solid.  Then I started sewing a white square to a colored square, and then sewing two units together to make  little nine patches.  The little squares were cut 1 1/4" x 1 1/4" so they finished at 3/4".  The little nine patch units measure 1 1/2" finished

It looked a  little like confetti!

I also trimmed up all the triangles to the same size and cut enough white triangles to go with them.  I sewed them together to make half square triangles.  These blocks also measure 1 1/2".

Except for some white pieces around the outside edge, the whole quilt is made from the little nine patch and half square triangles and a few colored rectangles at the end of 10 rows.  Pretty neat!

I sewed most of these little units as leaders and enders when doing other projects.  That works really well- but it seemed like it took forever to get noticeable progress!

I just kept making blocks and making blocks.  My scrap stash is never ending!  I decided on my own arrangement of the blocks and finally sewed the blocks into rows and sewed the rows together.  Tada!  That's a lot a littles!

Here are a couple design ideas that I didn't use

A progress photo

Just to see how small the blocks are

I know that SOMEONE - or ALL of you are going to ask me how many little colored squares and triangles are in the quilt.....Sigh.  I wasn't going to, but I finally buckled down and counted them.  There are  484 little colored squares and  272 colored triangles (and of course that many white pieces to match up with both shapes).  So there are 756 colored pieces and 756 white pieces plus some extra white pieces in the border.  That's a LOT of pieces!

This quilt took awhile to make, but it was a fun project and a good scrap buster.

Of course I used Schmetz microtex needles which are great for sewing small pieces.  Hobbs Cotton Batting is always a wonderful choice of batting.  All the quilting was done with white Aurifil thread.

Many thanks to Island Batik, Schmetz Needles and Hobbs Batting and Aurifil Thread  for providing products to make these projects.

Quilt Garden in Bloom

 I posted about the Nappanee IN Quilt Garden when it was planted in June.  It is in full bloom now and looks lovely.

My friend Gretchen took a day and traveled to 4 other quilt gardens.  Check out her post 

She highlights quilts and other things to see and do (and EAT!) along the Quilt Garden tour.

August - Assembling the Doll House Quilt

If you've been following along on making Amy Bradley's Doll House quilt- this is the month to put all the blocks together.  At last!  The pattern has either 10 rooms or13 rooms which makes an extra level to the house.

You can arrange the rooms in any way you like.  Have fun!  I decided to make 10 rooms and this is how I decided to place them.

First you sew the sashings to the sides of the rooms and sew them into rows, then sew the rows together with sashing between each row.  Easy!

Then sew the top and bottom sashings and then the side sashings.

Next you need to applique the fence to the side panels and the top little sashings and sew them on.

Then sew the sidewalk to the grass sections and sew them to the bottom of the quilt.

Next comes the roof sections.  This seems complicated at first, but Amy has really simplified how to get the roof and sky assembled.  It's all in how you trim up the pieces once they are sewn together.  Read your instructions carefully. The photo below shows how I trimmed one of the segments.

Here is a photo of assembling one of the windows on the applique pressing sheet.

Follow the directions on finishing the attic block and roof/sky pieces and sew the blocks together into a row.  Sew the row to the top of the doll house.  Amy adds the cutest wide ric rac to the roof edge.  I wanted to use things I already had in my stash and I only had narrow white ric rac, so I used that and it's still cute.  

This is a photo of my assembled blocks before I remembered to add the ric rac.

The last thing to add is the outside borders.  I decided not to add borders for a couple reasons.  I thought it was a pretty big quilt already and had been thinking of not putting them on and then I found the perfect backing fabric in my stash and it just fit the quilt without the borders.  That made my decision easy!

This was a lot of work for one month, but if you are like me you were excited to put everything all together!  Next month we will talk about quilting and finishing touches.  It's almost done!

Post photos in the comments if you can, I'd love to see your doll houses.(you may need to open the blog post in your browser to see where to comment).

As I've said in each post- it's never to late to get Amy Bradley's  Doll House Pattern and make your own for that special little one in your life.

Here are the girl and boy bedrooms that my sister Jody made for her doll house quilt.  I love how each room can be so different!

The doll houses are almost done!