Hollow Jewels - November Island Batik Quilt

Note, the fabrics for this project were given to me by Island Batik as part of the Island Batik ambassador program.

For November, the Island Batik ambassadors were asked to find a tool to use in the creation of their quilts and after a lot of time spent considering different tools, I chose freezer paper. I've had a roll of it for ages, but hardly ever use it. You can read my post about the magic that is paper piecing with freezer paper here. Spoiler alert...I loved it 😊 I have a feeling I'll be going through the roll of freezer paper a lot faster from now on.

Here is the quilt I made with those paper pieced blocks. Unfortunately, it's still only a quilt top, though I did get it basted after I took this picture. I really thought I'd be on track to have a finished quilt before the end of the month, but that's not going to happen. Where do the days go???

I had a crazy hard time coming up with a name for this quilt. Thankfully, the quilt pattern designers group on FB has some wonderfully creative people who suggested a lot of fun names. Dragon Eyes was one of my favourites, mostly because I've always loved dragons, but in the end I decided to go with Hollow Jewels instead. I love that it references both the coloured jewel shape and the black diamond in the center of the jewels. I hadn't really considered how that diamond makes the jewel look hollow, but now it really stands out to me.

The colours I chose were inspired by a sweater Silas, the 4 year old I babysit, wore one day. His parents went to Peru over the summer and brought back this sweater for him. I loved the colours and couldn't wait to translate them into a quilt.

I think this teal is my favourite Island Batik fabric. I've used it in at least three quilts now and I'm very happy to still have some left.

I love all of the other fabrics, too!

While assembling the quilt top, I was also thinking about what I would use for the backing. I honestly tried to convince myself to use the leftover yardage to piece a back, but I couldn't muster much enthusiasm for the idea. I didn't want to do the math to figure out if I had enough of these fabrics to make a back that would be big enough. Plus I didn't want to put in the work to sew that many seams. Now, this makes no sense whatsoever because I'm perfectly happy to sew quilt tops with a bazillion seams, but anything more than two seams for a backing feels like too much work. Go figure! I've decided that, as much as I admire pieced backs when other quilters make them, they're not my style. I had enough Island Batik solid grey to make a backing with only one seam, so that's what I did. As a bonus, the quilting, which will be in thread to match the fabrics on the front, will really show up on the solid grey 😊

This quilt will be a wedding gift for Paul's nephew Brandan next summer. Brandan was born in 1998, when I was just learning to quilt and my second ever quilt was a baby quilt for him. Strangely enough, that quilt also had bright colours on a black background. I messaged my sister-in-law a while back to see if she still had the quilt and she sent me this picture. Obviously, bright colours on a black background works with very different styles!

I am working on the pattern for Hollow Jewels and I hope to have it ready to release by the time I have the quilt finished. We'll see which one I end up finishing first!

Have you ever made a quilt with a black (or really dark) background? On another note, what's the strangest thing you've used as inspiration for a quilt design or colour scheme?