2024 Year End Review

Here's a quick review of  my Island Batik Ambassador Challenge projects and published quilts for 2024.

Triangle Turnaround published in Scrap Happy Quilts in January.  Made with a variety of cotton scrap fabrics.

This was the Feb Island Batik Ambassador Log Cabin Challenge quilt. 

March/April 2024  McCall's Quilting Magazine - Little House on the Prairie Pillow.  Made with scrap fabrics.

Winter Lilies - March Island Batik Ambassador Challenge .  The pattern is called Geese in the Lilies by Debbie Maddy of Tori Designs.

Ginko Quilt published in July/Aug/Sept 2024 McCall's Quilting.  Island Batik fabrics used in the project.

Twin Baby Ben bears made for the April Island Batik Ambassador Funky Friends Challenge.  I reduced the pattern to make a couple small bears.

Iris made for the May Island Batik Ambassador Paper Piecing Challenge.

Three Clam Up Bags for Claudia's Signature Blog Hop using ByAnnie's Clam Up pattern and Prisms fabrics from Island Batik.

June Island Batik Ambassador Challenge quilt made with all solids from Island Batik.  Quilt is called Zig Zag.  It was donated to Sleep in Heavenly Peace.

This is my Independence Day Star Table Mat published in the online We Like Quilting magazine.  made with all Island Batik fabrics.

My Marvelous Mini 13 3/4" x 15 1/2" made for the August Island Batik Ambassador mini Challenge.

Dancing Daisies 44" x 54" made for the Island Batik Ambassador Sept Challenge.

Hang in There Bag (one of two) made from a ByAnnie pattern for the Oct Island Batik Ambassador Challenge.

My Northwood Gnomes quilt published in the Winter 2025 McCalls Quilting magazine.  Made with all plaid fabrics.

Sedona Sunrise made for the November Island Batik Ambassador Challenge.

Winter Cardinal made for the Dec Island Batik Ambassador Challenge.  Fabric collage pattern by Emily Taylor.

It was a great year with  lots of fun projects.  If you want to see more about any of the projects, scroll back thru my 2024 blog posts.

Dec. It's All Up to You Challenge

 

The December Island Batik Challenge is called It's All Up to You!

This month the Island Batik Ambassadors could make anything we wanted.  I love this challenge as there are always things I've put on a back burner to do at some later time.  Since this was a winter challenge I picked the collage Winter Cardinal pattern by Emily Taylor.  I love her patterns and have made a couple in the past.

This is Woodlands I made in a free challenge month in April 2021

And here is a frog from another free month challenge in March 2023

Here is her downloadable pattern for Winter Cardinal.

I pulled lots of red, green and some brown Island Batik fabrics from my stash.  Collage quilting is always a bit challenging, but also fun to see the image take shape.  The fabric pieces are backed with Steam a Seam 2 fusible webbing.

Some progress.  Lots of fabrics and lots of little pieces.

The cardinal is all fused together as one piece on parchment paper, and then I had to work on the background.  I used one of Island Batik Basics fabrics called Pewter for the background.  It was a lovely color for the project.  Can you see the birds feet on the bottom branch?

Once the bird and background are all fused it is time to finish the project.  Emily had a technique where she fused a piece of stabilizer to the back and added a facing around the quilt.  She also didn't do any quilting!  I thought I'd give this a try as this was a small project (13"x 14").  Then I also could avoid quilting thru all the layers of fabric in the cardinal.

Here is a photo of the facing ready to be sewn.  There are folded triangles in the corners under the facing strips.  It is all sewn at the same time then corners trimmed and it is all turned to the back and pressed.  Sorry for the fuzzy photo, but you can get the idea.

Once it is turned and pressed you can hand stitch the facing or use a fusible 1/4" tape by Steam a Seam2 to secure the facing.  This was very easy.  You can see the corner triangles which are nice for fitting a  rod in for hanging the quilt.

As always Schmetz needles work great when sewing batik fabrics.

Once again, here is my Winter Cardinal.

Many thanks to Island Batik and Schmetz Needles for supplying products for this project thru the Island Batik Ambassador program