Phagun

Welcome to my stop on the Sunflower Spice Blog Hop.

Phagun, 80" by 100"

When Jennifer Thomas of Curlicue Creations asked whether I would like to join the BlogHop, I did not say yes. I had to see the fabrics, first. 

OK, YES. 

These vibrant hues cover the entire spectrum of the rainbow. The design had to be simple so that the colors could truly shine.

Making Blocks

Ravishing Red

Design Wall

Adding Scrappy Borders

Ta Da - A Queen Size Quilt

Well, yes. I made a queen-size quilt, named Phagun. Phagun is made with two quilt blocks - the Shanvi block using warm colors and the Irish Chain block using cool colors. Both blocks finish at 10". 

Borders - Inner Skinny & Outer Scrappy

A skinny inner border and an outer 4" finished scrappy border complete the quilt. The background is Egg Shell and the binding is Fondant.

Egg Shell

Fondant

Close-up

The batting is Tuscany Cotton/Wool Blend generously provided by Hobbs.

Thank you, Hobbs

A queen size quilt is the perfect excuse to splurge on a wide backing. This multicolored layered lava lamps fabric was just perfect.

Wide Backing - Color Matching

I quilted using my walking foot, my favorite squiggly stitching, following the 2" grid. I am the queen of keeping it simple :-p

Quilting in process

Now, pushing a queen size quilt sandwich through a domestic machine is a challenge (ask my neck and shoulders), as is modeling it. The arm span of a tall Paul falls way short of 80".

Solution - I attached a quilt sleeve and inserted an adjustable curtain rod. The still shots became easy and the walking quilt video (check my Instagram) a breeze :-)

Crushing on You!

It was a beautiful sunny Spring day on the banks of the Potomac and I decided to get in front of the camera :-)

Basking in the warmth

Daydreaming

Perfect Spring!

For lunch, because a hardworking (handsome too) model deserves compensation, we went to a restaurant called Wild Himalayan Yak. It is a Nepalese restaurant with some Indo-Chinese dishes. Paul was interested in trying the yak meat. But that is not the point of this story. The napkins are.

Picture from the Restaurant Website

Unlike any other restaurant, they have the most beautiful napkins made from woven authentic Nepali fabrics. You get me, right. When others are looking upward at the monument/castle, us quilters will be admiring the tiles. 

Picture from the Restaurant Website

Me: These napkins are so beautiful.
Paul just nodded, amused.

Me: I could just swipe one.
Paul: Don't!!!
Me: Just one. No one will notice. They won't even miss it. Look it is already past its prime.
Paul: Such a bad girl!

Me (changing topic): How is the yak?

Paul: It tastes like bison. How are your momos?

Me: Awesome. Can we come here again?

Paul: Sure.

At this point, Paul excused himself to go to the restroom. He returned with a colorful napkin. My eyes were as large as the momos on my plate.

Me (shocked): Did you steal it for me?

Paul: No, silly. I asked the head waiter. 

Me (still in disbelief): And he just handed you one?

Paul: I asked nicely, saying that my wife is interested in fabric and crafting. They change them every so often and this one is at the end of its useful life.

I was still stupefied. 

Thank goodness for Paul. I am glad that he keeps me honest. But I am thrilled that he keeps me.

I came home and got to work.

Threadbare edges removed

Beautiful but will need some creative thinking

Later, I covered that hole with a strip of matching Green Solid fabric.

Stabilized with SF-101

Batting

Matching Zippers

I am thrilled with these two zippered pouches - made from a dinner napkin that would have most likely ended up in a landfill.

Happiness is a Quilt!

Paul: What is Phagun?
Me: Phagun is the twelfth and final month of the Hindu lunar calendar, corresponding roughly to February and March. It marks the transition from winter to spring and is widely celebrated as the month of  Holi, the vibrant festival of colors.

And that is exactly what Phagun Quilt is - a vibrant festival of colors.

The Sunflower Spice blog hop runs from today through June 10th.  Here's the list so you can visit all the blogs during the hop:

June 1:  Curlicue Creations 

June 2:  Freemotion by the River

June 3:  Lisa's Quilting Passion

June 5:  Textile Time Travels

June 6:  Lady Blue Quilt Studio

June 7:  Sew Preeti Quilts - You are here

June 8:  Quilted Delights

June 9:  Sew Cute and Quirky

June 10:  The Darling Dogwood

I will be sharing with all my favorite linky parties. See full list on the sidebar.

Sweet Dreams

In summer I dream of a chilly breeze. 
In winter I dream of a fire. 
At land I yearn for the stormy seas. 
Once there it is dry land that I desire.

It is no surprise that I made an Autumn Quilt in Spring :-) Meet Sweet Dreams.

Autumn in Spring

Island Batik's June Challenge Requirements/Guidelines are as follows:

• Project Type: Quilt for Quilts Across America
• Size: between 50” to 60” wide and 75” to 90” long. 
• Fabric: Any, in colors that appeal to children aged 2-17.
• Work with any size unit that you want, you can also use more than one unit size in the project.
• Must use at least 30 units total, made with the Studio 180 Design tool you received.

I received the Corner Beam Ruler.

Corner Beam Units

I used four colors - Orange, Green, Red and Purple - in light, medium, dark and very dark to make the Autumn Leaf Block.

10" Leaf Block

I love the gentle gradation of values going from light in the tip to very dark in the base of the leaf. 

In Orange

The leaf stem is made from Eucalyptus (now discontinued Island Batik Basic).  The background is Egg White. I used Schmetz Microtex 80/12 Needle for piecing.

I  made a total of 24 Leaf Blocks, arranged four across by six down.  

Design Wall

The sashing is 2" and the border finishes at 3".

Basting

The batting is Hobbs Premium Cotton. I used Schmetz Microtex 80/12 Needle for Quilting, using my walking foot in a 2" grid with my favorite squiggly stitch.

Quilting Detail

The Binding is a Green Vine fabric left over from the Wild Blooms collection. 

In the picture below, I am standing on a picnic table, with the Potomac in the background, while Paul took the perfect shot. Can you see the river to the right?

Finished Quilt - 52" by 76"

Since the quilt used only 24 Corner Beam units, when we were directed to make at least 30, I considered adding a fancy border.  But that would take away from the simple beauty of the quilt.

I wanted to follow the rules/guidelines but sometimes that is at loggerheads with design considerations. 

What could I do? The shape of the Corner Beam unit is similar to a candle/lamp flame.

So I made a Zippered Pouch. It used four Corner Beam units, bringing the number up to 28. I know it is not the required 30, but that is close enough!

Appliquéd Corner Beam and Semicircle Units

Instead of piecing the units, I appliquéd them using an invisible thread. I used Red, Green and Orange (for the lamps) but not Purple because it would not have a good contrast against the Solid Black background.

Diwali Themed Zippered Pouch

There are design decisions at every stage. Do you approve of mine? Please let me know. 

I will be sharing with all my favorite linky parties, including Quilting Jetgirl's Favorite Finish. See full list on the sidebar.

In other news, Angela has announced that June will be Blue. Here are my Island Batik Blues ready to become Hexie Blocks. 

All the Blues - Light, Medium and Dark

We will be receiving our second Ambassador Boxes in July. 

I need to arrange, consolidate and make room for new supplies. Would you be interested in Island Batik fabric scraps? 

No pressure :-D But I'd love to know.

Fly Away Challenge

The Island Batik June Challenge reads as follows:

Use one of your precut bundles and play with the versatile Flying Geese blocks to create a fun quilt or table runner! Your project must use Flying Geese blocks as the focus but you can combine other blocks to enhance the project. 

Now, I am not a fan of Flying Geese Blocks. The construction is a fiddly multi-step process, regardless of the method you choose.  Even when the method works for you, you need a specialty ruler for precision points. In my opinion a flying goose block is made up of two half square triangles with several construction methods and no need for special rulers. 

Therefore I had never considered a project with Flying Geese. And when I looked for inspiration, everything seemed dated. So what does an Island Batik Ambassador do - Highlight the fabric!!!

Project # 1 - I chose a super simple pattern that would show off the fabric. I used the Celebrate Stack (10" squares) to make tiny roofs.  

I used my Accuquilt 8" Go QUBE to cut flying goose triangles from the Celebrate Stack and the sky triangles from Solid Black.

Accuquilt Cut Triangles

The flying geese units finish at 4" by 2" and the house/wall units are 4" squares.  I used 17 out of 20 fabrics. It is a simple design but it shows off the Celebrate collection perfectly! 

Be My Neighbor

The backing is Fondant and I love its subtle blue-gray color. The background and binding is Solid Black. I used Hobbs Black Batting and Schmetz 80/12 Microtex Needle. I quilted with my walking foot using Aurifil 40wt thread and a squiggly stitch with horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines. My little houses mini quilt finished at 24" square and I have named it "Be My Neighbor". 

Labelled

I showed my bright mini quilt to Paul. 

Me: Look at my bright and happy homes.
Paul: Are they homes?
Me: Yes, why?
Paul: They look like pencils or crayons to me.
Me: I'd think the pencils would be more pointy.
Paul: Houses would have doors or windows.

He had a point.

That is when I made Project # 2, using the 2.5" Strip Pack of Juicy Mosaics.

For background I chose Island Batik Neutral Egg White.

Row Houses

I chose those fabrics that had bricks/tiles pattern to reinforce the house effect. Paul agreed that these looked like houses.  I happily fashioned them into a cute zippered pouch :-)

Love this!

I live here :-)

With these two projects, I had completed the requirements of this challenge. I was done. Officially! 

But these Juicy Mosaics are so gorgeous that I wanted to continue playing with them. After I spent few hours of playing in EQ8, I didn't know whether I was coming or going.

Yellow Won this round!

For this design, I needed one other color in addition to the black background.  With a choice between sunny yellow and lime green, I chose yellow.

Once again, I used Accuquilt to get precise flying goose units. It is good to be an Ambassador :-D

In process

Ooh Shiny!

And here is my fabulous, flying goose-focused finish!!! Ta Da!!!

Coming or Going?

Do you see fish? How many?  

Finishing at 28" square, I have named this fishy finish - "Fishful Thinking" :-D

The backing is pieced from leftover backings of larger quilts made earlier.  The binding is Solid Black.  I used Hobbs Black Batting and Schmetz 80/12 Microtex Needle. I quilted with my walking foot using Aurifil 40wt thread and a squiggly stitch (my default style).  

Wonky Pieced Backing :-P

Labelled

Of course I love quilting. I love playing with fabrics and colors and trying new things. But if it was not for Island Batik's Challenge, I would have never come up with this design.  

So even though I began this post whining, I am grateful to Island Batik for pushing my buttons, month after month. Thank you Island Batik (hope you can overlook the whining).

I will be sharing with all my favorite linky parties. See full list on the sidebar. 

For some reason, I want salmon for lunch. What is on your plate (food or quilt)? Do let me know.