Friendship Galaxy Skinny Mini - September Island Batik Challenge

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

It's time to share my September Island Batik challenge project and it's definitely a favourite of mine 😊 It all started with the challenge theme - "Star Struck." Oh, there are so many possibilities with that theme, aren't there? I've always loved star blocks of all sorts, so coming up with a quilt to make that included stars would not be difficult.

I decided to make the skinny mini size from my Friendship Galaxy pattern. Of all my patterns, this is the one I've used most. I've made two of the baby quilt size (here and here) and another of the skinny mini quilts. Here's my Island Batik version.

I enjoyed taking this mini quilt for a walk on the trail this afternoon and seeing the beautiful fall colours that are just starting to appear.

This time around I chose to use only one fabric for the background, a beautiful mottled cream. For the stars, I used a deep marbled teal for the smallest friendship stars and a leafy print for the larger stars.

The shapes in the leafy print inspired this leafy quilting design, done in Aurifil 2311. It was very meditative filling all the negative space with different sized leaves, facing all directions.

Usually when I'm quilting the negative space with one design, I try to fill tiny areas of negative space with the same design, but sometimes it's hard to make it work on such a small scale. So, in the spaces around the small stars, I decided to just echo around the stars, which filled the space nicely and was much simpler to quilt, too. Win, win!

The small stars got some quick elongated swirls, which I love. Aurifil 5006 is a fair bit lighter than the teal batik, but it was the best match I had on hand. Plus, I like the contrast.

The larger stars got this quick point-to-point design, which is one of my go-to designs for triangles (and sometimes squares).

Once all of that quilting was done, I realized I didn't have enough thread left for the alternating back and forth lines I had been planning in the border rectangles. Turns out, I did those back and forth lines on the first skinny mini quilt, too. I decided to try some organic wavy lines instead, letting them cross willy-nilly.

I quilted three wavy, criss-crossing, lines and then put on the binding, but it didn't look like quite enough quilting in the border, so I went back and added one more wavy line. I didn't have enough of the 5006 to wind another bobbin, though, so I used 2311 in the bobbin for the last line.

Truth be told, I'm not 100% happy with the wavy lines. They're more messy looking than I really wanted them to be, which I guess comes from their organic nature. Maybe if there were more of them, in a larger space, I'd be happier with them, so I'll have to give them another try sometime where I have room for more lines.

As always, I love how the quilting looks on the back, where I used another pretty cream batik.

Playing with these Island Batik fabrics and challenges each month is a lot of fun! I have my October quilt top finished, so now I just need to decide how I'm going to quilt it. I'm already planning things for November and December, too, though I haven't fully settled on those projects yet. The planning is all part of the fun 😊

If you want to make your own skinny mini Friendship Galaxy quilt (or one of the other three sizes), you can get your copy of the pattern in my Etsy shop.

Prep Work

Devotion for the Week...

Whenever I start a new quilt I'm anxious to get to the part where I'm sewing the blocks together, but there's a certain amount of prep work that needs to be done first. I prewash my fabrics, so that's the first step, followed by ironing all of those freshly washed fabrics and then I can start cutting. Taking those larger pieces and cutting them into the necessary units is an fun step, too, but it's nothing compared to the magic of assembling the first block.

Of course, if the quilt I'm starting is one of my own designs, then the prep work starts even sooner, when I finalize the block sizes and the finished quilt size. I also have to figure out what pieces need to be cut and make sure that I have all of the measurements right, making notes as I go. That usually means making one test block before cutting everything out for the whole quilt, just to be sure I didn't make a mistake somewhere along the line.

Lots of projects involve prep work. Painting a room requires taping around the mouldings, etc. Cooking a meal involves making sure we have all the ingredients and cutting them up as needed. Sometimes we get impatient with the prep work that needs to be done before we can tackle the thing we want to be doing, but the end results are always better if we do the work that needs to be done first.

Sometimes we get impatient with God, too, but you can be sure there is prep work involved in His projects on this earth. I'll never forget the time I heard Chuck Swindoll, of Insight for Living, giving a message about the birth of Jesus and he said something like, "God made it so the emperor of Rome was having financial difficulties and ordered a census so he could properly tax his people, which meant Mary and Joseph had to go to Bethlehem." I had never thought before about why Augustus needed to take the census mentioned in Luke 2, or even that God had a hand in making the census happen. God was working there, getting everything in place for Jesus to be born in the way that would fulfill all of the prophecies about Him.

And look at Priscilla and Aquila, a couple of believers Paul met in Corinth, who hosted him in their home. The couple "had left Italy when Claudius Caesar deported all Jews from Rome" (Acts 18:2). Priscilla and Aquila opened their home for church meetings (1 Corinthians 16:19) and who knows how many people they taught about Jesus, all because the emperor forced them to leave their home and move elsewhere. How many others also left Rome and taught about Jesus in their new homes? How much slower would the gospel have spread around the region if those believers had all stayed in Rome rather than spreading out? It's another example of God using the emperor of Rome to make things ready for His work.

Peter wrote, "I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. They will say, 'What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.'"(2 Peter 3:3,4). But Peter also said, "The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent" (v. 9). We can't know what prep work He is doing to get ready for when Jesus will come back, but we can be sure He hasn't forgotten about His promise. We can be sure that the day will come and that when Jesus does return, everything will be exactly as it needs to be for God's plan.

Are there things you're waiting on God for? Prayers you've been praying for what feels like forever and there's no answer yet? Maybe there's some prep work that needs to be done first and the answer will only come after that work is done. We may not recognize His prep work for what it is while we're waiting. It's only when we can look back that we see what God has done to make things ready, both in our situations and in us, for what He wants to do for us and through us.

But whether we see it or not, we can rest assured that God is always working, doing everything that needs to be done to put His perfect plans into motion.

Love Birds pattern updated

I'm working on getting my patterns printed so they can be stocked by quilt shops, which has been such a big learning curve for me. Of course, when I don't know how to do something, I tend to procrastinate on it for ages, so I've been wanting to do this for a loooong time, but I'm finally getting it done. We'll just focus on that, okay?

Love Birds is the first pattern I'll be having printed and to get it ready I expanded the pattern to add baby (48" x 48") and throw size (60" x 72") instructions. Options are wonderful, right?

Then Yvonne, of Quilting Jetgirl, worked her technical editing magic on the pattern, making it better than it was before. If your patterns need tech editing, I definitely recommend working with Yvonne 😊

I've also updated the PDF pattern file available in my Payhip and Etsy shops, so if you want the PDF pattern, click on one of the shops to get yours today.

If you'd like to see my printed patterns in your LQS, I'd love to have the shop's contact info so I can reach out to them once I have those patterns in hand.  I've been getting quotes from printers the last few days, so I'll soon be ready to place that first order.

Have you tackled anything new lately? Or have you been procrastinating on trying something? Please tell me I'm not alone in doing that, lol!