Tuesday, January 30, 2018

City Windows Featuring Island Batik's Autumn's Grace Collection




Autumn’s Grace – City Windows

This beautiful collection has 30 pieces. I wanted to show off all of the pieces and was inspired by the house I used to live at in San Francisco, built in 1927. It has beautiful arts and crafts architecture of the time with wooden moldings and interesting glass panes in the door ways. When I went searching online for something Stickley or Arts and Crafts or Craftsman like, I found Amy Smart’s Craftsman quilt.

I wanted to maximize the use of the fat quarter and show off the beautiful designs, so chose not to use her specific design but go my own direction. 

Here is the result.
Fat Quarter Friendly – regardless of direction of the fabric, you can choose to cut it up and maximize a fat quarter to make this quilt. Based on how big you’d like your quilt will directly depend upon how many fat quarters you need.  These blocks are 17”x 17” finished. I used a 1” finished sashing in the block and between blocks. I also used the same sashing fabric as the binding. Another idea is to use a bit of the leftovers from the fat quarters as a scrappy binding.

I've put together requirements for 11 different sizing configurations below.


# of Fat quarters (layout) finished size; Sashing/border/binding fabric requirements:
6 FQ ( 2 x 3 ) 37” x 55”; 1.125 yds
9 FQ (3 x 3) 55” x 55”; 1.375 yd
12 FQ (3 x 4) 55” x 73”; 1.75 yds
15 FQ (3 x 5) 55” x 91”; 2 yds
16 FQ (4 x 4) 73” x 73”; 2 yds
18 FQ (3 x 6) 55” x 109”; 2.25 yds
20 FQ (4 x 5) 73” x 91”; 2.5 yds
21 FQ (3 x 7) 53” x 125”; 2.5 yds
24 FQ (4x6) 73” x 109”; 2.75 yds
25 FQ (5x5) 91” x 91”; 2.875 yds
30 FQ (5 x 6) 91” x 109”; 3.125 yds





I used some of the leftover bits from the fat quarters to increase the size of my wide-back so it was large enough for the 30 block quilt.



Quilted it with a beautiful YLI variegated thread--Aspen Gold--and the "Curly Maple" pantograph. I used Warm & Natural for the batting.


Want a PDF download of this pattern? You'll find it at my Craftsy page NOW for FREE -- TODAY ONLY,  and can purchase a hard copy or PDF download starting February 1 at my new website www.kissedquilts.com.

Hope you enjoyed this inspiration and the introduction to these beautiful Autumn’s Grace Fabrics from Island Batik.

This is my final 'new design' IBA post for this season. Each week of this blog hop I've done a visual recap of the season, so I'll add one at the end of this week to do a final wrap up.
Winter Spring  Summer ...and to come...Fall.

It has been a great opportunity to share these beautiful fabrics, I hope you’ve enjoyed my projects for the past three years. I'm looking forward to using my time on other projects that have been percolating in my brain. 

Did you miss my Alpine Ice, City Culture 2 or Pumpkin Patch posts?

I will have new designs coming out with Island Batik at Spring Market. I hope you'll follow me via my newsletter, blog, instagram or Facebook and look for my articles in your local Country Register.

#islandbatikambassador #islandbatik #thebestfrombali #fourseasonsbloghop #electricquilt #autumnsgrace

Giveaways also available directly from Island Batik.


Monday, January 29, 2018

Fall Festival in Pumpkin Patch




Pumpkin Patch is a great collection that is shipping to stores now! It looks like several shops will have it including Sew Yeah Quilting in Las Vegas, NV and All About Quilting in Jacksonville, NC. You might even find it at Hancock's of Paducah.

As part of this collection’s featured design, I created Fall Festival. I had tested this pattern a year ago and called it Pumpkin Patch, so when this particular collection was issued, I knew I wanted to be able to feature the fabrics in this design and renamed the pattern.


 


This is a multi-block design – a Sunflower; Leaves; Acorns and Pumpkins.

Start off simple with the center sunflower, leaves could be scrappy or controlled,  Leaves, acorns and pumpkins have some parts that are paper pieced.

This pattern is available for PDF download on Craftsy or my website, including hard copy purchase with or without printed foundations at www.kissedquilts.com.

Free on-line tutorials will be presented as part of a closed Facebook group. You will be invited, upon purchase of pattern.

Would you like to do this as an on-line class? Indicate in the comments below and I’ll be sure to notify you when this will start. Pick up the pattern now so you'll be ready to go!

Did you miss my Alpine Ice or City Culture 2 posts?

I will have new designs coming out with Island Batik at Spring Market, so stay tuned!

My Autumn’s Grace post will be up tomorrow with a free, for a limited time, pattern.


Island Batik is doing a giveaway so be sure to register there!

To register for an opportunity to win a free pdf of my pattern for Fall Festival, use this rafflecopter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tomorrow I'll be back with my last Island Batik Ambassador post and a new pattern too!

#islandbatikambassador #islandbatik #thebestfrombali #fourseasonsbloghop #electricquilt


Sunday, January 28, 2018

Four Seasons - IBA Blog Hop - Summer Wrap-up and Fall this week!

I've been enjoying putting together the visual wrap-ups each week of our Island Batik Ambassador Blog Hop - Four Seasons. This past week was Summer.




   

  


 


 


This week is Fall/Autumn.  - I've got two posts, with new designs in each.
 I hope you won't miss them!

January 30 – Autumn’s Grace
KISSed Quilts • Beaquilter
February 1 – Northern Woods
Moosestash Quilting • Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting


I have not gotten much piecing done myself while traveling this past week, other than behind the scenes. New posts for this week are close to being ready and more pattern writing is getting done.   I'm looking forward to catching up on my 365 Block Challenge and getting started on Aves -- a block of the week QAL out of Australia. I'm also hoping to launch the new version of my website on February 1.

#islandbatikambassador #islandbatik #thebestfrombali #fourseasonsbloghop

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Hosta BOM and City Shadows in City Culture 2



The City Culture II collection is shipping in April. But, shops can order City Culture 2 10" stacks now! So, I've got a project you can make NOW and I wanted to share another project that I've been involved with that uses this collection. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know Jayme Crowe at Bella Nonna Design Studio. She asked if I would quilt her Hosta BOM in her featured collection. I was honored!

Here are some detailed photos during the quilting process. Here are the threads I considered using. I'm not sure I ended up using all of them, but several for sure.

I started off with doing a wainscot style quilting in the border. Laying a measuring tape down helps me to hit the spacing correctly. It is important to space these evenly so that once you get to the opposite end of the border you want the spacing to look right.

The leaves are the feature, so didn't want to add something in the background that would distract from the leaves. A squiggly set of lines seemed to mimic what was going on in the motifs of the fabric and complemented it well.

The quilting evolved to include more ditch work in the borders and vein work in each leaf. Consider the stabilizing material that you use when doing the applique'/decorative stitching so that it isn't too thick to quilt.

This is now a block of the month program available to shops or you can buy the pattern directly from her website at Bella Nonna Design Studio. (free shipping)


This week I've been on the Big Island of Hawaii and I thought a lot about the lines in each of these leaves. Here are a few plants that I saw at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens, just north of Hilo.

  







Here are some other projects that were shown at Market, featuring this collection.




But, I've got one more NEW DESIGN to share with you.

In my last Island Batik Ambassador box I was sent a 10” stack  (currently available at Hancock's of Paducah) of this City Culture 2 collection. Recently I became acquainted with Missouri Star Quilt Company’s It’s All an Illusion pattern which reminded me of the Shadow Box quilts I've seen for several years. I also saw displayed at market Shadowbox by Mountainpeek Creations using the Mountain Majesty collection. All of these ideas inspired my version that I’m calling City Shadows. I used the 10” stack, cut them into 5” squares or 5” x 10” rectangles. Sometimes using one square, one rectangle, or both sewn together (14 ½”). The shadows had to be adjusted accordingly. Consider starting with a 10" square. Using the golden ratio for a pleasing design aesthetic, I decided on these 3 sizes. I also like to think about the 'sun' being in the upper left corner, so the shadows are to the lower right.

Shadow Fabric is BE24-E2 Marble Charcoal - available at Hancock's of Paducah

Background Fabric is Parchment / NO44 - available at Hancock's of Paducah

I've included links above for the top: the 10" stack, the shadow and the background fabrics available at Hancock's of Paducah. You are going to love the fabrics in this collection. There are really some stunning ones. The cracked glass motif is just amazing!

This is quilted with 'Breath of the gods' panto (hand guided) --thought it looked like wind swirling around in the city--with #Aurifil thread (lt grey) - #2600. I used the same fabric as the background for the binding. I usually add a dark border and at least a dark binding, but it just felt like the shadowed boxes spoke sufficiently on their own.

This one is ~ 47" x 53"



So, for the backing, I just made one LARGE shadow box!

Chestnut Bark is the shadow on this one.  (City Culture II Industrial District ChestnutBark)  -- shipping in April.

The main block is Paisley Dot - Pixel - Dusk also shipping in April.






































If you'd like to make this pattern, it is available as a PDF download at Craftsy. FREE through January 28. You will be able to purchase it from my NEW website at www.kissedquilts.com starting February 1.

If you'd like to be part of the new website release or get notifications of new designs, I hope you'll sign up for my newsletter, follow me on my blog, facebook, or instagram.

I'll also send a set of 5" squares from the pre-cuts that were leftover from this quilt top to one lucky winner. Please register via this rafflecopter.

  a Rafflecopter giveaway


I'll be back with two more designs next week during the AUTUMN/FALL SCHEDULE! Hope you'll be back.

Don't miss additional giveaways from Island Batik.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

WINTER RECAP
SPRING RECAP

SUMMER SCHEDULE this Past week:
January 25 – City Culture 2
The Quilt Rambler • Lizard Creek Quilts • KISSed Quilts --you're here!

Mahalo!!

#islandbatikambassador #islandbatik #thebestfrombali #fourseasonsbloghop #electricquilt