Bourbon Street Bash

Designing for the May/June 2023 Issue of Quiltmaker Magazine, I chose the fabric line Celebrate. Designed by Kathy Engle, this fabric line will be available in stores in May 2023.

Imagine my surprise when the magazine was published in March 2023.  It is Island Batik's guidance to release patterns as close to the fabric availability as possible. If the fabric is not available (at the time of pattern release or shortly thereafter), then it feels like a tease or even a torture, especially when the fabric is this gorgeous!!!

For this reason, I have been slow/reluctant to share this quilt.  It is April. I can safely say that the fabrics will be coming to the stores next month.

Picture Courtesy - Quiltmaker Magazine, May/June 2023

Here are the pictures showing my journey of making Bourbon Street Bash.

The first block

Pieced Border

These fabric screams Spring. The colors make the blooms blush and the bright hues are reminiscent of a party or a bash. Since no one parties like the Bourbon Street, I named it Bourbon Street Bash.

Balloons and Streamers = Celebration

Quilting

I quilted slowly, enjoying the deep greens and bright citrusy prints.

Binding

The backing is Pistachio (Island Batik Basics) and it is yummy enough to eat :-) 

The binding is Egg White (Island Batik Neutrals).

Bound and Labelled

Bound and Labeled, it was time for the photoshoot. Paul, my love?  

Will you please...

You are the best!!!

Can we get one with the reflection, I asked. We can try, Paul replied. Although it was a beautiful day, it was just too breezy for a good reflection picture.

Sunny but too Breezy

Garden Party, indeed!

Very Happy Me!

I received many comments and emails praising this gorgeous fabric line. So, I cut up the leftover fabrics into 5" squares.  Since I only had 17 fabrics (out of the 20 in the Celebrate line), I added three matching fabrics from Island Batik Foundations (top three fabrics in the picture below - orange, yellow and pink) to make two complete sets of 40 squares (2 squares of each fabric).

Giveaway Prizes - Two Charm Packs

Yes, there is a giveaway.  Two prizes. I will announce the winners on April 10, 2023.  To be eligible to win one of the two charm packs, please leave me a comment telling me your favorite party food or drink, along with your instagram handle. Please make sure that I have your email address.

And one last look because you are such a juicy quilt :-)

Citrusy Yumminess

My friend and fellow Island Batik ambassador, Connie Kauffman also has a quilt in the same issue. Her sweet mini quilt is called - Have a Cuppa. Do check it out.

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In other news, Purple is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for April. I have picked out my fabrics - some reddish purples and some bluish purples. 

Plenty of Purples from Island Batik

I will be sharing with all my favorite linky parties (see full list on the sidebar), including Angela's Linky Party.  As usual, my bash is incomplete without your input :-)

Quilt # 7 - Alphabet Soup

My MIL lives in Georgia. She sews too, much less now than she used to. However, she has enough evidence - fabrics, notions, machine and more - from her sewing days. We visit her every year on Thanksgiving.  When I told her that I had started sewing, she was overjoyed.

MIL: Welcome to the family, my dear.
P: What? I have been apart of your family for several years now.
MIL: Oh, I mean sewing family. Finally, I have someone to pass on my stuff to.

When I sent a picture of my first quilt to her, she wrote back to me the sweetest email that any MIL has ever sent to her DIL. How sweet, you may ask.

Well, it was so sweet that I forwarded it to my mom in India.
What did my mother do with that email?
She printed it out and has it framed. Well, not quite but she has  shown it around to friends and family.
That I got kudos from my MIL reflects on her excellent upbringing. It is a cultural thing. If you are from India, you are more likely to understand.

Here is the text from the email

"You do such beautiful work. Have saved the pictures you send so I can show them to others and brag about my wonderful daughter-in-law who cooks, bakes, sews, takes such good care of her husband and so much more. I'm the luckiest mother of all."

So, when my MIL asked me to make a quilt for a friend's niece who was expecting a baby, I hopped to it. I used charm packs and my favorite pattern - the disappearing nine patch and here is the result.

The birds fabric for the backing was totally irresistible.

 

 

Quilt # 4 - Down to Earth

There is a story behind this quilt. Isn't there always a story behind every quilt?

A very dear friend informed me that she was expecting. I was so happy to hear her big news. And almost immediately my head filled with patterns for a baby quilt. Here comes the difficult part - she won't share with anyone whether it was a boy or a girl. Yikes!!!

I like a challenge. I decided to go with neutral colors - greens and browns. I used my favorite pattern - the Disappearing Nine Patch.

These colors are really soothing. I wish they were brighter. 

This was my fourth quilt on my very basic Brother machine. I hated it when after spray basting and continually smoothing out my layers, the fabric would still bunch in places. Why is this happening, what can I do differently? 

YOU NEED A WALKING FOOT.

I travelled to Bethesda, MD to find a walking foot for the machine. Did you notice how sewing machines and vacuum cleaners go together? No, I don't get it either. The shopkeeper was very helpful but there was no way my machine would take a walking foot. However, he offered to sell me a new machine which would be excellent for my quilting needs.

So, I travelled to Springfield, VA to look for a walking foot that would fit my machine. I went to the authorized Brother store. Same result - no foot would fit my machine but I could buy a new one foot and all other contraptions. I needed to think about it. In any case, let me first finish this quilt.

I like how it is coming together. I used Stitch in the Ditch to quilt it - it is slow and painful. And I rarely stay in the ditch. But I still love the outcome.

And there are cute giraffes on the back...

So, now that the quilt was complete, it just felt more like a boy quilt. But that is just my opinion. I gave the quilt to my friend on June 22, 2013. Her handsome boy was born on July 4th, 2013.