Churn Baby Quilt - May Island Batik Ambassador Project

Note, the fabrics, batting and some of the threads for this project were given to me by Island Batik and their industry partners as part of the Island Batik ambassador program.

The Island Batik ambassador challenge for May is Make it Modern with Hobbs Batting and the idea was to make, you guessed it, a modern quilt using Hobb's batting 😊 I chose to make the baby size of my Churn quilt.

I started by pulling out my blues. You know I love these Island Batik blues! Some of my pieces were too narrow to be used for the patchwork background, but they were perfect for the small churn dash block.

I also pulled scraps of bright orange and Rice, which is a creamy white with hints of blues/greys. Churn requires good contrast between the patchwork background and the other fabrics and these two definitely fit the bill!

I used Hobbs Heirloom cotton batting and whenever I picked up the basted quilt I was surprised by how light and fluffy it felt. I haven't quite figured out why it felt so different, since I've used Hobb's cotton batting before without noticing it being so very light. Maybe it was because this was also a small quilt, so the airiness was magnified by how small the quilt is. I'm not sure, exactly, but it was really noticeable and I still find it softer and lighter than I'm used to even after being quilted. I'm curious about how soft it will feel after it has been washed.

I used Aurifil threads (50wt) for all of the quilting. In the orange, I used 2210 to quilt simple back and forth lines, turning them into diagonal teardrops to fill the corners of the churn dash block. I'm surprised by how often this particular orange is just what I need.

The teal fabric in the very center needed something special, so I quilted it differently from the rest of the quilt, using 5005. I really like quilting these little flowers!

You'd think white thread would have been the perfect choice for the white fabric, but it was actually a little stark against the creaminess of the fabric. 2311 was just right for some quick wishbones. I don't usually quilt wishbones that are this wide and it felt very different from quilting them in a narrow sashing strip. I managed to take all the pictures for this post without getting a good closeup of one entire white section, so you'll just have to look at the wishbone quilting in other pictures, lol.

Choosing a thread for the blues in the patchwork background was the hardest part of this whole quilt. I have a few different blues, but none of them seemed to work in the variety of blues included in the fabric. Some were way too light on the dark fabrics while others were way too dark on the light fabrics. In the end, I chose 1158. It's a fairly dark grey, but somehow that seemed to be the nicest on all of the fabrics.

Before I started quilting the background, I worried I wouldn't have enough thread since the spool is getting a bit low. I needn't have worried, though...this is what is left after I finished quilting, lol. I swear some spools last extra long.

For the back, I chose this Pinecone print. I have to admit that I often have a hard time knowing what to do with larger scale prints like this one, so it was nice to be able to use it for this backing. As a bonus, it was just barely wide enough to use as the back for the 42" quilt without needing to be pieced. You can really see the loopy meander I used to quilt the background in this picture. The Aurifil 1158 was perfect for this fabric!

I pretty much never cut the binding until I'm ready to put it on, in part because a lot of the time I don't know what colour I want the binding to be. That was definitely the case with this one. I considered orange, but I worried that would take the eye away from the center. I pulled all the blues that were big enough to use for a scrappy binding since none of them were enough to bind the whole quilt. I also brought out the white, though I thought that would detract from the center, too. My friend Michelle was over sewing with me while I was trying to decide and she suggested I do a flange binding, with the white as the flange. Perfect!

Of course, I've never done a flange binding before, even though I always love it when I see it on someone else's quilt. A quick search for a tutorial brought up this one from Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts and it was so easy to follow. This is yet another thing on the list of "I've never done it so I assume it must be hard to learn, only to discover it's not at all." You'd think I'd learn, lol.

The little bit of white is just right. Not enough to overwhelm the center, but enough to add a little zing to the edge of the quilt. Plus, it keeps the binding from blending in when it's on a square made of the same fabric. I see more flange bindings in my future.

Want to make your own Churn baby quilt? Or a throw size? Both are included in the pattern 😊 Click here to get the pattern.

After discovering that I can attach my labels on the diagonal, I'm now putting them on all my quilts that way and I am so happy with the way they look. It's so much nicer than having them flap around. The labels are from Finer Ribbon. I started out with 1,000 of them a few years ago and I still won't be needing new ones soon, lol.

As you can see, my machine binding stitches always seem to veer up onto the binding somewhere along the perimeter of the quilt, no matter how hard I work at keeping everything straight. Does that happen to you, too?

I'm squeaking in under the wire with this finish, posting only a couple of hours before the month of May is over. I'm not sure how the month has flown by so fast, but I am excited for June. June means there are only 4 more weeks of school/work and then we'll be free for summer break. I'm hoping it also means the weather will start being warmer than it has been as I'm ready to stop putting hats and mittens on the kids I babysit when we go out for our morning walks. Plus, I'm really excited about my June Island Batik project. I don't know if I'll get a chance to start this weekend, but I'm itching to get at it! We'll see if I can get it finished before the end of the month is looming again 😊

Family

Devotion for the Week...

When I made heart blocks to send to Christchurch, New Zealand following the shooting there, the man at the post office remarked "You quilters are just like one big family." Hearing that made my day! It's wonderful to be a part of this wonderful, world wide community that is so willing to jump in and do what it can to help others. We've seen it time and time again, when illness strikes, after violence and after natural disasters, when quilters rally together and make quilts to show our love and support to those who are hurting, even if those people are on the other side of the world.

And when it was quilters who lost everything, as was the case during the Camp Fire in California in 2018, quilters rushed to help get them back to sewing by donating fabric, notions and even basic sewing machines. Sure, those things weren't going to replace the homes they lost, but giving them a way to start sewing again was giving them a way to feel normal again. It was a way to give them back the hobby they likely used for self care and 'me time' during a time they needed it most.

Of course, we quilters like to celebrate with people, too! Quilts are made for new babies, weddings, graduations, birthdays, Christmas and any other occasion we can think of to give a handmade gift. It feels good to share in someone's joy by giving them something useful and beautiful that was made by our own hands. It's a tangible expression of our love and our joy for them.

The Bible tells us that Christians are to "Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15). Like family, we should be sharing life with those around us in such a way that we feel their pain and their joy. We should be jumping in with both feet, ready to assist or celebrate with them as the moment requires. Like quilters wrapping quilts around people who are hurting, Christians should be there with open arms.

Many of us do this naturally, but sometimes we find ourselves holding back, or at least I do. Do I know that person well enough to offer to bring them a meal? Would they even like something I cooked for them? Do I have time for it? That's a big one, to be honest. But God doesn't want us to hold back. He wants us reaching out, extending His love to everyone around us, especially in their times of need.

Like quilters, Christians are one big, world wide family. We can celebrate and mourn with our fellow believers. More than that, though, we can also celebrate and mourn with non believers as a way of showing them our love and support, which in turn can show them the love God has for them.

A Little Thing

Devotion for the Week...

Are you prone to worry? Generally, I'm not, but there are a couple of situations that trigger it for me. One of them is when I have a new child about to start coming to me for child care, especially if I know that child doesn't go to sleep on their own (I can't leave the older kids who don't nap unsupervised to rock another child to sleep). I stress when I know that I'm going to deal with a child who probably won't nap because they can't drift off on their own, which means a sleepy, cranky child who is also unaccustomed to being away from mom for so long. I dread the first day, especially, and it plays on my mind for weeks before it happens.

The thing about worry, though, is that it doesn't change the outcome of that first day at all. The child is either going to deal well with the transition or she's going to scream in my ear for hours or, more likely, something in the middle. Whichever way it goes, the worrying I did for days ahead of time doesn't change our day.

Jesus warned us not to waste our time worrying. He asked, "Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?" (Luke 12:25). Obviously, the answer to that is a resounding no. No amount of worrying can do something as monumental as adding even an extra second to our lives. If we could, we'd probably all set a goal of worrying enough to add years to our lives.

The interesting thing is that Jesus goes on to say, "And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?" (v. 26).  A little thing like that?? Talk about a difference in persepective. To Jesus, who knows intimately the full power of God, adding a moment to our lives looks like a small task, easily accomplished, whereas for us it is a complete impossibility.

Since we can't do something as little as adding time to our lives by worrying, why do we think that worrying will make a difference in other things?  We would be much better off if we turned our worries over to God, who, unlike us, actually has the power to do something about them. 1 Peter 5:7 says, "Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you."

It's hard to remember to do that, though, isn't it? Maybe it would be easier if we remember that to God, adding time to our lives is just a little thing, so whatever is worrying us is well within His power, too.