This month’s Island Batik challenge is to use the Accuquilt die we were given in January.

I recieved the “Glorified Nine Patch” die.  At first, I was not thrilled to recieve it.  There are curves … yes, CURVES, and I was not a friend of curves.  But, I decided that I needed to become friends with curves and the guild was offering a curves workshop.  I signed up.  During the workshop I learned a few tricks to sewing curves.  One of the biggest stumbling block for me is that curves take TIME.  No speeding through at 100 miles / hour (or however fast my machine can sew.)

When I finally decided on the fabric to use for this quilt, I was quilting with friends.  Darcy happened to have a Go! Big Electric Fabric cutter.  Oh wow!  It was great to use it.  I could layer 8 batik fabrics and it sliced through them with ease!  My cutter will do 6, which is just fine for me.  But when I had 140 yellow and 140 lights to cut, layering 8 layers made quick work of it!  Thank you, Darcy, for letting me use it!

Below is a picture of the Accuquilt die (left) and the die on the cutter with fabric pieces on it.

I designed this quilt on EQ7.  I couldn’t find a “glorified 9 patch block” or an “improved 9 patch block,” so I drew my own.  I’m not sure if it’s perfectly to scale, but it was good enough for my purpose!

Then I just coloured in the blocks … even though I no longer have some of the fabrics, or enough of some of them to make the quilt, this gave me a starting point.

I gathered up my “fall” coloured Island Batik fabrics and cut out the pieces.  Some of them are from the “Soil & Seeds” collection by Kathy Engle, some are from basics and the rest were in my Island Batik box without a sticker on them.   Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough fabric that coordinated with the fabrics I chose to make this quilt much bigger. (Interesting, when my daughter saw the quilt, she said, “it’s a nice spring quilt, mom.”)  I guess the lighter green fabric lends itself to the spring-like touch!

The sides of the blocks were placed on my design board. And I made one block, just to make sure it would be what I wanted.  It was.

Sewing this quilt took some organization.  I numbered and pinned each of the centre portions because it would be a total mess (not to mention a LOT of unsewing!) if the colours got mixed up.  But, if you know me, I LOVE challenges like this!

Sewing took TIME.  Curves take TiME.  But each block got made. One stitch at a time!

Cutting these blocks with the Accuquilt ensured that the pieces were cut perfectly!  The notches matched perfectly.  And, as you can see, 3 of the corners turned out almost perfect – the 4 th corner, not so much …  (I NEVER have said I’m perfect! … and it says so at the top of my blog!) However, I can NOT imagine trying to make this block using templates! Using a Go cutter is the only way to go!

Here is the quilt with 3 rows in order, 4 more rows to go!

The thread I chose to quilt this with is Aurifil #2205.  It is a very light light peach colour that went well with all the fabrics.  I did not want the thread to say “here I am,” but I’m becoming a huge fan of having the thread as a subtle contrast on the light /white, fabric.  I quilted a ¼” on each side of the petals and stitched in the ditch through them.  I did an “orange peel” flower in the brown squares, followed by a circle surrounding them.

I used Hobbs 80/20 for the batting.  I absolutely LOVE this batting!

My husband and I went to Cresent Beach to attempt a photo shoot.

It was late in the day and I wasn’t impressed with the natural colour distortion.  But it is what it is.  We did see and eagle fishing and it landed in a tree above us.  Can you see it in the picture?

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Disclaimer: The products featured in this Blog post were given to me by Island Batik, and their co-sponsers Aurifil, Hobbs Batting & AccuQuilt!  

I was Featured!

One who sleeps under a quilt is covered by LOVE!

Happy Quilting! 
Gail 

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