It’s August and that means a new Island Batik challenge! This month it’s the Marvelous Mini challenge and Ambassadors are challenged to create a small project, no more than 24” x 24” using any of the Island Batik fabrics that we’ve received (except for the latest collections which we’ll be using in September’s challenge).
As always my mind was whirling with ideas but I decided to refer to my “want to make” project list and select one of those patterns rather than creating one from scratch. You’ve got a similar list too, don’t you?! 😉
I selected the “Fox in a Box” pattern by Jeni Baker from the Fun-Size Quilts book published by That Patchwork Place. I’ve always thought this was such a cute design and I knew that the Island Batik fabrics would definitely make the little fox faces pop!
Next, I needed to choose nine different fabrics as well as a background fabric. This was so easy as I could use some fabric from the Island Batik Stash Builders (5” x WOF strips) that I had. The hardest part was selecting the fabrics as there were so many wonderful bright ones to choose from. The background fabric I used was Sprinkles from the Island Batik Foundations collection. I really love this particular neutral and have used it in previous projects.
I cut out all the fabric and got ready to start the first step in the Fox in aa Box construction.
As I needed to make some half square triangles in this project, I reached for my Quilter’s Magic Wand from Studio 180 Designs (I have two of these) to draw stitching lines for the half square triangles construction.
Once the stitching was done, I needed to trim the half square triangles to the appropriate size so again, Studio 180 Designs came to the rescue as I used their Tucker Trimmer I for this purpose to get accurate half square triangles.
Piecing the fox blocks together went well and I was really pleased with the Island Batik fabrics I’d chosen for this mini quilt. These blocks are a square in a square and you can see how I added the outer half square triangles in the video below.
Before I could stitch the entire top together I had to decide how to arrange the blocks: I find that laying them out and then taking photos of the various arrangements helps me to decide on this part of the project (which always takes me way more time than it should!).
The blocks were then stitched together and it was time to do some quilting on them. Referring to the quilt in the book, I noticed that Jeni had echo quilted around the fox heads and I decided to do the same except I echo quilted two lines ¼” apart. This quilted enough of the project so that I didn’t need to add any additional quilting. Bonus!
The final touch was to add the eyes and I had already selected two different types of black buttons that I thought would work well. Another decision to be made: which type to use but it didn’t take me very long to make this choice (thank goodness!). I used the button stitching foot T on my Janome CM17 to quickly and securely stitch on all of the eyes.
And here is Island Foxes!
Thanks to Island Batik for the fabric I used in this project, to Oliso for the TG1600 Pro Plus iron that worked so well to get everything pressed so flat, to Hobbs Batting for the 100% cotton batting that I used in the project, and to Studio 180 Design for the tools I used in its creation.
Be sure to check out what other Ambassadors are creating this month – there’s a wide variety of projects that you’ll want to see.
Did you know that you can get Island Batik fabrics and precuts at the Missouri Star Quilt Company? Use my affiliate code to get 20% off your order of over $50.00 (it will automatically kick in when your cart exceeds $50.00).
Be sure to check out my Chatterbox Quilt’s Facebook page to see what else is happening in the studio.
Also, be sure to check out the other Island Batik Ambassadors’ blogs to see what they’re creating. You can find them at:
Brenda Alburl ~ Songbird Designs
Renee Atkinson ~ Pink Tulip Quilting
Megan Best ~ BestQuilter
Pamela Boatright ~ PamelaQuilts
Susan Deshensky ~ Lady Blue Quilts Studio
Brittany Fisher ~ Bobbin with Brittany
Preeti Harris ~ Sew Preeti Quilts
Mania Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for quilts
Jane Hauprich ~ Stitch by Stitch Custom Quilting
Victoria Johnson ~ Forever Quilting for You
Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs
Connie Kresin Campbell ~ Freemotion by the River
Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood
Denise Looney ~ A Quiltery
Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights
Maryellen McAuliffe ~ Mary Mack Made Mine
Lisa Pickering ~ Lisa’s Quilting Passion
Sarah Pitcher ~ Pitcher’s Boutique
Lana Russel ~ Lana Quilts
Julia Schweri ~ Inflorescence Designs
Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail
Carol Stanek ~ Stitch with Color
Sandra Starley ~ Textile Time Travels
Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations
Suzy Webster ~ Websterquilt
Be sure you’re following me on Facebook and Instagram so you won’t miss out on what I’ll be creating next month with Island Batik fabrics!
Note: The products featured in this blogpost were given to me by Island Batik and their sponsors. Thank you!
#islandbatik #islandbatikambassador #loveislandbatik #createwitholiso #hobbsbattinginside #hobbsquiltbatting #marvelousminichallenge #studio180designs