Friday, September 28, 2018

Starstruck September


Have I mentioned I love being an Island Batik Ambassador?  Even the blog photo is inspirational.  I really do want to make something like that one of these days.  

For September, the Island Batik Ambassadors challenge was Starstruck.  Anything with a star, and any size.  I planned to try to work on a UFO that has lots of stars, but decided to make something new, because we're supposed to use more current collections.  I pulled a variety of fabrics, knowing I needed at least 1/2 yard for the borders and binding.  I tried a few different colorways, but this one spoke the loudest.  I used some of the scraps from the August Spring Blossoms quilt, especially the pink bird design.  I had a piece of pink with little dots, grabbed some scraps for the background, a larger dot, and the dragonfly fabric from Spring Blossoms, too.  

I made my Friendship Star, or Ribbon Twist Star runner.  I wanted to show you that even your "non-batik" designs can use batiks, just as well.  

Here's the Island Batik version. 




But wait!  I just made this in traditional Christmas fabrics.



I've used traditional colors, too.  Blue and yellow; yellow, gray and red; strawberries, with red and blue, so many others.


See?  You can use batiks in anything.  I happen to love how the twist makes the star disappear.  It looks like a ribbon is weaving around squares.  

If you haven't tried Island Batik, you really should.  The colors are gorgeous, and the fabric is wonderful.  I am so spoiled.  When I make something with Island Batik, there's hardly any fraying.  When I work with other brands of fabrics, the fraying edges seem so bothersome and numerous!  It's so annoying to work with other stuff, now.  I was finishing something recently, with another brand of quilting fabric, and was really surprised at how many strings had to be trimmed, from units, blocks, the border. It felt like such a waste of time, because I seldom have to do it with an Island Batik project.  I know part of it is that the fabric is washed so many times, that it's shrunken, and the fibers are now meshed and closer together.  It's also because Island Batik starts out with a great base fabric, to begin with.  It does matter.  

Try it, and let me know.  

On a side note, the family of my Airplane commissioned quilt send this.  Little C looks so happy to have his Aeronautics quilt.  The quilt is about 62" square, so it looks like he'll be snuggling with it for a while.  I'm so happy he's happy!  


Also, I received my Teal Mini Quilt from my swap partner.  I think she did a wonderful job for a very new quilter.  The wing is the teal fabric that we were given to use.  I know this bird will make me smile.   Becky also sent a Kansas pin to add to my collection.  The Map quilt was given to me by my partner the first year I participated.  I'm collecting pins from other states I visit as well, but missed a few. lol



That's all my news for now.  Thanks for visiting!  
I'll be sharing the quilt I'm sending to Becky soon. 

2 comments:

Pamela said...

All the different runners are great, but I do really love the Island Batik one! And the baby on the quilt is sooo sweet! What a lucky little guy to have such a terrific quilt that he can enjoy for years....

Kathleen said...

I love your pink, new starstruck table runner. The picture of the baby is just terrific...really my favorite thing about quilts is seeing a picture like that.