Burst - Island Batik September project

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

I love scrappy quilts so this month I really enjoyed making Burst from my Island Batik scraps 😊 Unfortunately, because September was an absolute whirlwind, it's only a top at this point.

The Island Batik ambassador challenge for September was to make a juvenile inspired quilt using the Accuquilt Block-on-Board die that we were sent in our second box of goodies. I received the Crossed Canoes die.

I have to admit that I had a hard time seeing anything particularly inspiring in the block for a long time. It's a fine block, but it had me feeling rather 'meh' until Laura (Slice of Pi Quilts) mentioned that she was using her die to cut the pieces for her quilt, but not creating the block they were intended for.

With that in mind, I started playing around with design ideas using a quarter of the Crossed Canoes block as the whole unit. Once I hit on this idea of having scrappy units radiate out from the center, I was excited to dig into my Island Batik scraps and get cutting!

Silas was my cutting partner again for this project and he still loves rolling the fabric through the Accuquilt Go! machine and seeing what the newly cut shapes look like. Now every time he sees one of my quilts he says something like, "we already cut the pieces for that one" 😊

While I was designing Burst, I tried using a few different colours for the background, but I kept being drawn to the white. I love how the colours pop against the white and using grey or black just wasn't giving me the same feel. I do feel like white is really impractical for a quilt (how long will it stay looking white if you're actually using the quilt?), but sometimes design has to win, so white it is.

I cut a whole stack of white squares to alternate with the pieced units, only to discover I cut them ½" too small. Whomp, whomp, whomp!

The Crossed Canoes die makes a 9" finished block, which means each of the quadrants is a 4 ½" square. Somehow, I forgot that that means it's 5" unfinished and so I cut my squares at 4 ½". I think I was thrown off by the finished size of the unit being a ½" measurement when I'm so used to that being the unfinished size. It's a good thing Island Batik sends lots of those beautiful solids in our ambassador boxes so I could cut more squares at the right size or I'd have had to rethink my entire design!

I love all these bright scrappy pieces!

 I'm planning to write the pattern for Burst, so keep an eye out for that, hopefully in the near future. In the meantime, I need to decide how to quilt it. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

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For Me?

Devotion for the Week...

Every year on Christmas Eve, we watch the Alistair Sim version of A Christmas Carol (in black and white, thank you, not the colorized version) and, for some reason, a line from that has been playing through my mind lately. I know, we're not even into October yet, but this isn't actually a Christmas message, so just bear with me 😊

Near the end of the movie, after Scrooge has met with the three Christmas ghosts and realized the error of his ways, there's a scene with Mrs. Dilbert, who refers to herself earlier in the movie as 'the chow lady.' In this particular scene, she runs screaming from Scrooge because he seems to her to have gone completely mad and he catches up to her on the stairs and calms her down. He then gives her a guinea (which was worth 1 pound and one shilling according to Google). When Scrooge explains that it's a Christmas present, she says in wonder, "A Christmas present? For me?"

It was the "For me?" that has been going through my mind lately, along with her wide-eyed expression of wonder.

There are many people who think that God doesn't want them because of their pasts...or because they've been told so often that they're unlovable they now believe it...or because they feel too insignificant to be worthy of God's attention. There are probably any number of other reasons, too, but the truth is that God does want each and every one of us. Not only that, but Jesus came to offer salvation to each and every one of us.

Romans 5:8 says, "God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." Not only for the people who were trying their best to be good enough. Not just for the ones who had their lives straightened out. And certainly not only for the people who thought they were good enough (in fact, they were the ones Jesus spoke most harshly of while He was on the earth). For us.

Who fits into this us Paul writes about? Everyone. There is no one left out. Jesus came to offer salvation to everyone. It's our choice whether or not we accept it, but the offer is available to everyone without restriction. "For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

Have you ever heard that God offers salvation to anyone who believes in Jesus, but wondered, "For me?" I say a resounding YES, FOR YOU!

Background is my Night Sky quilt.

No matter what your past looks like. No matter what people have said about you. No matter what you have done or what has been done to you or what you think of your own worth. God says you are worthy and He sent Jesus so that He could have a relationship with you.

This offer of salvation is for anyone and everyone. Above all else, it is for you.

Night Sky in Catch and Release fabrics

It's the last day of the Catch and Release project party and I'm so excited to share my Night Sky quilt made in Mister Domestic's fabrics!

When Mathew, aka Mister Domestic, put out a call asking for makers to join his Catch and Release project party and make something with these fun fabrics, I knew right away I wanted to re-make Night Sky. The original is made with only two fabrics, and I love the simplicity of it, but I always knew I'd want to make it again with each star made in a different fabric. Well, this new version of Night Sky is made with 14 fabrics and looks so completely different from the original!

I had to get a picture on these steps, just like the picture on the pattern cover 😊

These Art Gallery fabrics are so wonderfully soft to work with and they hardly fray at all, which is nice because I realized after I basted the quilt that I hadn't thought to check for stray dark threads under the white fabrics. Hopefully the lack of fraying means there aren't any lurking under there.

Along with the Catch and Release fabrics, I used Art Gallery's Pure solids - Tranquil Waters for the background and the inner triangles are Pistachio Creme and Sweet Mint. It was Mathew's suggestion to use different colours for those inner triangles and it really changes the whole look of the quilt 😊

Now, can we just talk about these adorable fabrics? This Catch and Release line is so much fun! There are ladybugs, fish and flowers, a text print full of great sayings and more. It's really hard to choose a favourite print! Do you have a favourite?

I cut all the pieces for the quilt top and started piecing, only to realize that some of the prints are directional and I hadn't even considered that when I cut them out. Oops! I was making four-at-a-time flying geese and I really tried to arrange everything so those directional prints would be going the same way, but I just couldn't keep it all straight in my head. In the end, I decided that fish can swim horizontally and vertically if they want and I'm okay with that, lol. We won't talk about the flowers that are growing sideways...

There was never any question how I'd quilt this one. Those flight paths on the ladybug print seemed to be practically screaming "quilt me" so I did 😊 Of course, whatever ladybug flew this loopy meander all over the quilt must have been very dizzy indeed by the end of it!

I did have some trouble deciding what colour thread to quilt with, though. I wanted to match the background, but it seems Aurifil doesn't have a thread that matches Tranquil Waters. There are a couple that are close, but not quite right. So, I tried unwinding some 2600 and 5006 on the fabrics to see what I liked and the 5006 looked best to me, probably because some of the prints contain a similar shade of teal.

The lighting in the picture doesn't show the fabrics well, but it makes the texture from the quilting show up beautifully. Makes you want to pet it, doesn't it?

I used the dark blue fish fabric for the binding and I love the little fish that ended up swimming here and there along the edge.

It seemed only right, with a quilt full of fish fabrics, to take it to the beach for pictures.

The rocks at this beach are fascinating, with folds and ripples everywhere. It amazes me to think these rocks were once layered flat and horizontal and now they're tipped up and wavy. There are also a few of these neat little scooped out hollows (in the shadow to the left of the quilt). They're like the beginnnings of teeny little caves.

Thanks for visiting! If you like my Night Sky pattern, click here to buy it. It's written for only two fabrics, but a fat quarter is sufficient for each of the stars, so it's not hard to mix it up with lots of fabrics 😊 

Now, let's celebrate the project party with a giveaway! I've cut charm squares from my leftovers of the Catch and Release fabrics to share with a lucky winner anywhere in the world. There are two charms of each of the fabrics I used, for a total of 22 charm squares. To enter, leave a comment on this post telling me which quilt pattern you've made most often. For more entries, follow me on Instagram and Facebook, leaving a separate comment for each.

The giveaway will remain open until the morning of October 4th, when I'll randomly choose a winner and contact them by email (so make sure I have a way to reach you if you win!).

The Catch and Release project party has been a lot of fun, with an amazing variety of projects, including an umbrella! How have I never known it was possible to make your own umbrella? If you want to see all the projects, check out #agfcatchandrelease. There's enough inspiration there to keep you sewing for a long, long time 😊

Thank you, Mathew, for letting me play with your beautiful fabrics!

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