Paper Pieced Celebrations Blog Hop and Giveaway

Iris

Designed and made by Connie Kauffman

28" x 22 1/2"

 The May Island Batik Challenge is called Paper Pieced Celebrations.

I received a Surprise Bundle of fabrics from Island Batik for this challenge.  The fabrics were a Winter 2023 collection designed by Claudia Pfeil called Lavandin.  Island Batik sends a terrific half yard bundle of the collection along with a coordinating dark and light fabric we can use with it if we choose for this challenge.

This collection has some nice purples, a touch of teal and many green/ivory mixes.  This challenge comes in the spring and I immediately thought of Iris's when I saw the fabrics. The challenge was to make a project using paper piecing and to make something with a theme of celebration.  April 22 was Earth Day and my iris flowers were already growing so I decided to celebrate Earth Day even though I wouldn't be able to post until a later date.

Lavandin is a collection of 21 different fabrics.  I ended up using 13 of them and I also used Doughnut for the background.  Doughnut is from the Foundation/Basics collections.

Here I'm playing around with the colors.  I think the purples look like the colors in some Iris.

I ended up not using the fabric on the bottom right as it had a lighter teal/green and yellow.  You can see how it sort of stands out.

I designed two paper pieced Iris patterns.  These were unusual for me as they were much larger than I usually work with.   They also had some Y seams that I almost NEVER allow, but they ended up piecing okay.

Here is a look from the back of some of the pieces in one block in progress.  The back is always reverse of the front in paper piecing.

Here is a partially finished block from the front.

I designed a simple paper pieced block to use in the borders that used a variety of the fabrics.  I find that using Schmetz needles and Aurifil thread work well even with sewing thru paper.  And of course it is good to keep an iron close at hand to press all those seams flat.  Oliso provided irons to all the Ambassadors this year and that is a real help.

And then I kept changing my mind on what to do for the borders.  Here are a couple ideas I played around with.

I finally decided I was over thinking things and I went with my original design.

I used Hobbs Cotton batting, Aurifil thread, Schmetz needles and pressed pieces with the new Oliso iron.

Here is the binding going on - it's almost finished!  I always do a single fold binding.

Here are a couple photos of Iris taken outside on Earth Day.  This one is behind the iris in my flower bed.  The real ones aren't blooming yet!

Here is one on the fence in my side yard.  The colors showed up better outside today.

Island Batik is having a great giveaway this week.  Be sure to enter here for a chance to win one of two fat quarter bundles!

Be sure and follow all the Ambassadors during the hop.  You can see the listings here.

Megan Best and  Leah Malasky are also posting today using the Lavandin collection so be sure and see what they created.  

I'm having a giveaway of three half yard pieces from the Lavandin collection.  These three pieces had  yellow in them and didn't fit with my design colors.  I hope you enjoy them!  Leave a comment on how you like to celebrate spring to enter.  USA entries only due to postage issues.  I will select a winner by Random.com at the end of the blog hop.

Many thanks to Island Batik, Aurifil Thread, Hobbs Batting, Oliso Irons, Schmetz needles for supplying products to use in making this project thru the Island Batik Ambassador program.

Don't forget that I am an affiliate for the Missouri Star Quilt Company.  If you use my link 

https://glnk.io/mzmmj/kauffmandesign 

you can get 20% off any order of $50 or more!