Island Batik blog hop and giveaway – Home Decor

Welcome to my stop on the Island Batik blog-hop showcasing Island Batik Winter 2019 fabric collection. The fabric I was sent is called Season’s Splendor, designed by Kathy Engle for Island Batik. If the bright red, green and gold do not make you think of Christmas, the trees and the snowflakes most certainly will.

The fabric, batting, thread and needles for this project were provided by Island Batik, Hobbs batting, Aurifil threads and Schmetz needles respectively as part of the Island Batik Ambassador program.

The blog hop theme is home decor. I was initially stumped because I don’t decorate my home for seasons. I find that too much work – to change things around for each season. What I have today was made about three years ago, and they will get replaced when they wear out and I make new ones.

However, we put up a large Christmas tree every year and I know it really needs a new tree skirt. This collection was just perfect for my project. The reds and greens are vivid and bright. I picked the Christmas-themed prints for this project – trees, snow flakes, ornaments. I used my tutorial for the Spiral Nova and made the top.

For the spiral nova, I used eight different fabrics. I wanted a dramatic red-green effect and so I grouped the reds together and the greens together.

After strip sets are sewn, I re-cut the strips at an angle to make the 45 degree diamonds. See my instructions in the tutorial. Lining up the 45 degree line and the straight line on the ruler always gives a more accurate cut.

I layered the batting, the backing and the top right side down and sewed all round the edges leaving a small opening for reversing. The standard quilt birthing process. Yes, they are all batting scraps from my previous projects. The are all Hobb’s cotton batting. I did not sew the batting strips together. Just cut them, matched them and laid them on a table. The backing fabric I used a lovely deep green checkered batik from the same collection.

If you look at this picture and think I’m crazy, you are probably right. I was planning to use the walking foot and quilt concentric circles all around. However, my walking foot was misbehaving and I did not have time to figure out the problem and fix it. I had to find a way to pin it to my frame and quilt it. Can’t do concentric circles but I quilted a spiral all-over design in the background and a wavy design in each of the diamonds of the star.

This is where we put up the tree. There is a small alcove next to the stairs in the foyer. I think it fits perfectly!

Now on to my next project. When we had a large group over for Christmas last year, I noticed that some people wanted to move around in and out of small groups seated around in the living room. I thought that a couple of light movable seating would be useful. I had a cheap and cheerful “cube” ottoman from a decade ago. It did not fit the decor any more and was hiding in my closet. I made a cover for it that worked with my current decor.

I didn’t want this to look like Christmas! I cut large rectangles of just the reds and golds, and using a technique similar to my other tutorial, Bisection Quilt I cut out irregular-sized rectangles joined by one-inch strips of black. Of course, I used Island Batik solid black.

This piece is about 75″ X 15″ to cover the four sides and the top of the cube. I used a piece of black Hobb’s 80/20 batting and a thin muslin for the back.

After quilting, I cut out a section for the top and sewed a cylinder like sleeve for the sides. Here it is tested for size. I then sewed the top section. I’ve never done something like this before. I watched some upholstery DIY videos and tried it out.

I’m kinda surprised how well this turned out. The seams fall in the right places and design and colors blend well in my loving room.

I got two packets of Aurifil thread with my IB box this year. One called Tuscany Orange and one called Dolomite Green. I used some of these colors to quilt both projects. I also used the mauve thread for the dark reds. I finally opened the packet of Schmetz microtex needles. It was such a joy to quilting and piece using these needles.

There are three giveaways here.
1. The Rafflecopter below is for an Island Batik giveaway. You earn an entry for each comment at each of the blogs in the blog hop this week – ends May 15th.
2. The second is from me – a bundle of 10 fat-eights of green and red-green prints from this collection. This will go to someone who leaves a comment on this blog – ends May 21st.
3. The third is also from me – a bundle of 10 fat-eights of red and gold prints from this collection. This giveaway is for someone who follows me on Instagram (@storiedquilts314) and leaves a comment on my Instagram post for this blog hop – ends May 21st.
My giveaways are for US addresses only. Currently, the US postal service is not accepting any packages for international mail and I don’t know when it will resume.
In addition, please visit the other ambassadors in the blog hop this week. They may also be having a giveaway.

Blog hop for this week:
May 11
Pamela Boatwright – Pamela Quilts
Michelle Roberts – Creative Blonde
May 12
Leah Malasky – Quilted Delights
Sandra Walker – mmm quilts
May 13
Gail Sheppard – Quilting Gail
Maryellen McAuliffe – Mary Mack’s Blog
May 14
Vasudha Govindan – Storied Quilts
Carla Henton – Creatin’ in the Sticks
May 15
Island Batik Round-up Week 2 plus Giveaway