MaryMack's Blog: November 2024

Oh, my are you in for some lovely inspiration! The Island Batik Ambassadors are sharing their Dresden Plate challenge quilts with the new collections shipping to stores soon. Please ask your favorite shops and look online for the collections.

Today I present Butterfly Haven, a signature collection for Jennifer from CurliQuecreations.com. She's been an ambassador with me for many years, and I'm thrilled she's getting signature collections. This one is really pretty, and designed by Jerry Khiev.

Butterfly Haven has beautiful leaf designs, lots of butterflies, and a starburst flower tjap. The colors range from a pale gray, to lime grass green, forest, shades of purple in eggplant and aubergine, and pinks like salmon and raspberry. The colors are not bright, but more muted, like during a rainstorm.

I received a 1/2 yard bundle of the 20 fabrics, plus a light green and a dark green for this hop in my Ambassador box in June, as the Surprise bundle. We were asked to make a lap size or larger quilt using as many SKUs as we could. I played in EQ8 with their Dresden Plate designs until I came up with something I felt looked pleasing, and reminded me of butterflies fluttering down. I used 19 of the 20 fabrics for the top, and will add the 20th as a second border. The last few weeks have been a challenge, with many things coming at the same time, so I only had time to finish the main part of the top for photos for today. The time change didn't help! It got dark an hour earlier than yesterday.

I placed the fabrics in a pile and tested a few background options. I picked Coconut. I cut 20 squares from this, and then decided to use the 4 different main greens as the quarter circles, and have them cascade down the diagonal. Then I picked the 15 prints for the petals. I wanted to use them all, but that would mean having many more petals, and although my original idea was to do a colorwash effect, that would make way too many changes in the blocks. As it is, I have 12 different blocks, 20 total. With the 3 main color petals, and 4 different quarter circles, it was a challenge to keep everything straight, and work quickly.

I also didn't have much fusible web, and couldn't find a ruler that was the right size for the wedges. Normally the "math" for the wedge shape would be the 18* wedge tool, but the ones I had didn't match up with the templates I printed from EQ8. So I got creative and used freezer paper. After counting how many of each quarter circle I needed, how many would fit on a strip, and how long to make the strips for the petals, I traced the templates onto freezer paper, pressed them on the fabric using my Oliso Pro iron, and put a new Schmetz size 12 Chrome needle in my Janome 9450. I threaded it with Aurifil 50wt in white for piecing.

Some of the steps are shown here.

I trimmed the layers of petals with a ruler aligned with the freezer paper. For the quarter circles, I used scissors to trim the curve after trimming the 2 sides with the ruler.

With this design, to make the points, you fold the petal in half along the 2 long sides, and sew along the top (wide) part. You press that seam open, and flip it to the wrong side, so your petal has a point with pressed edges. A stiletto helps to push the point out. The Oliso iron was great for pressing this shape down.

My next step was to sew the petals together in the right order. Success! No need for seam ripper.

After that, I placed the 1/4 plate on the Coconut fabric square, making sure that the points were over 1/4" away from the sides, and then placed the quarter circle on. I actually used pins and a glue stick for this part, rather than fusible web. I could have trimmed the Coconut from behind after applique, but I decided to leave it. After I had a few pieces ready to applique, I changed to a dark green Aurifil 50wt, and found a dark salmon pink, as well. I used the first applique blanket stitch, and didn't use a stabilizer, so it was not perfect, but I was happy with the results. The quarter circle is raw edge, the petals are folded under. I used the pink on the petals, even if they were purple. Most of the fabrics had some of the pink in it.

At this point, I decided to use the printed copy of the design and really plan the blocks and locations. I counted how many I needed to make, numbered each block, and used a numbered pin to mark each. Once I had 2 rows together, I took a photo.

Oops, what happened?

The second row is not right! I realized I had it flipped, the block marked 5 should be under 1, not 4. So, time with the seam ripper. And picking off the clipped threads.

I kept making blocks and then doing applique for the edges. Using the numbered pins helped a lot. I numbered them as I pinned the petals and the quarter circle. It was rather quick to assemble the top, to this point, after the blocks were done.

Before pressing and final borders, and sunset.

My next step is to cut and add borders, then quilt it.

This is my plan to use for the borders. It will finish about 68 by 80 inches.

I'll use a wide back and get it done soon. I'm currently finishing up quilts and getting ready to vend at our guild quilt show November 9 and 10, at the Community Center in Mineola, NY. I'll update this blog post when it's done.

In the meantime, please follow along with the other Ambassadors. Lisa is sharing her gorgeous top today, as well, and there will be 3 weeks of give-aways by many of the Ambassadors and from Island Batik. Leave a comment below either answering the Island Batik prompt, or telling me about your Dresden Plate experience, and I'll enter you for my give away of some gorgeous Island Batik fabrics. US only, unless you wish to help pay for the extra shipping to your country.

Thanks for visiting!

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