Dresden Plate Blog Hop

This month the challenge for Island Batik Ambassadors was to create a Dresden Plate quilt project using the latest fabric collections from Summer 2024. We received these fabrics in a “surprise” package in our last shipment from Island Batik.

The fabric I received to use was Midnight Garden by Jerry Khiev for Island Batik and I loved the various colours and patterns in this collection and had lots of ideas as to what I could create with it.

Here’s a closer look at the gorgeous fabrics in the Midnight Garden collection that I was so excited to work with.

I love to make Dresden Plate projects and was really looking forward to working with this beautiful fabric collection however I encountered a slight hiccup - I was out of the country for several weeks on vacation so my project is a bit late but…better late than never, right?! 😉

Once I had the fabric, I just had to create a pattern using Dresden Plate blocks. I had lots of ideas but finally settled on the Butterflies in the Midnight Garden one that I designed in EQ8. Here’s an overview of the project that I created in EQ8.

I like designing in EQ8 as it allows me to upload and use the actual fabrics that I will be choosing for the “real” quilt. This gives me a good idea of what the final effect will be and allows me to change some details, if required. I don’t always include all of the finer details - such as the circles that will be in the centre of the Dresden Plate blocks - but just enough to get me going on creating the quilt.

I love the versatility of Dresden Plate blocks: you don’t have to use a full circle, but can use half and quarter circles, as I did to make the “butterflies” in the quilt. There are so many options with this block as you’ve already seen with the amazing creations from other Island Batik Ambassadors.

Now that I’m back and recovered from my vacation (with 3 countries, 8 flights (some with several hours delay) and multiple time changes, it took me a few days to get my feet back under me!), I’m hard at work making my Butterflies in the Midnight Garden for the Island Batik Ambassador blog hop and hope to share my creation with you soon.

Be sure to check out my Pinterest board to see all the other wonderful quilts created by my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors during this month’s Dresden Plate bloghop.

Also, be sure to check out the other Island Batik Ambassadors’ blogs to see what else 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 with Island Batik fabrics!

Note: The products featured in this blogpost were given to me by Island Batik. Thank you!

#islandbatik #islandbatikambassador #loveislandbatik #createwitholiso #olisoconnects #schmetz #aurifil #hobbsbattinginside #dresdenplatebloghop

What's in my bag? The October 2024 Island Batik Ambassador Challenge

It’s October already - where did September go?! - and that means it’s time for another Island Batik Ambassador project! This month, it was the What’s in Your Bag? challenge.

The challenge for all Island Batik Ambassadors for October was to create a project using a pattern from ByAnnie.com. I’m sure you’ve heard of this company that makes amazing bag patterns and has all the hardware and notions required for their patterns.

Thanks to ByAnnie.com for providing us with not only the pattern but everything required to make our chosen project.

For me, not a bag maker, this challenge was a big step out of my comfort zone but I decided to keep it simple (and attainable) and chose to make the Ditty Bags 2.0 in the medium size. I figured even a beginner bag maker like me could handle this project.

Thankfully, ByAnnie,com provides lots of helpful videos to make their patterns so I was able to follow along with their video instructions as I created the Ditty Bags 2.0. There are Add-On Videos for many of their patterns and I found the one for this pattern very helpful.

I was able to choose the fabrics I wanted to use for this project and I again stepped out of my comfort zone and chose fabrics in colours that I normally wouldn’t use. It’s always a good idea to shake things up once in awhile! 😉

Obviously these fabrics are “Salem approved” 

I chose some of the fabrics from the Flora Nova fabric collection from Island Batik because I thought they would make a bright and cheery project. Thanks to Island Batik for providing me with these fabrics.

It didn’t take many tools to create this bag and I made sure to get everything ready before I started but…

One thing I didn’t do was follow instructions exactly as they were written in the pattern - a bit of a mistake on my part. I usually do follow the pattern instructions but I thought I could do a bit better when adding the zipper but I should’ve followed Annie’s instructions - and not my own! Using clips was definitely the way to go - not using double-sided tape as I tried to do. It was only a slight misstep that I was able to quickly remedy before moving onto the next part of the construction process.

Clips, not double-sided tape, was the way to go when attaching the zipper due to the finishing technique used

I learned so many new-to-me bag making techniques when stitching up the Ditty Bags 2.0 project and I’m sure these will be helpful when (if) I tackle more complex patterns in the future. Even Salem was impressed by the end result (I think).

No treats in the Ditty Bag 2.0 for you, Salem!

For more information on what I learned when creating my version of the medium size of the Ditty Bags 2.0 pattern and how I personalized this design, check out my video below.

Be sure to check out my Chatterbox Quilt’s Facebook page to see all the other wonderful quilts created by my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors during this month’s What’s in Your Bag? challenge.

Also, be sure to check out the other Island Batik Ambassadors’ blogs to see what else 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 with Island Batik fabrics!

Note: The products featured in this blogpost were given to me by Island Batik. Thank you!

#islandbatik #islandbatikambassador #loveislandbatik #createwitholiso #olisoconnects #ByAnnie #patternsbyannie

Flying Geese for a Cause

It’s June and that means another Island Batik Ambassador project!

This month Ambassadors are creating quilts to donate to Sleep in Heavenly Peace as part of the Quilts Across America initiative started by Deb Tucker of Studio 180 Design in 2023. Here is some information about this organization and their goal:

Quilts Across America is a program that relies on the generosity of quilters everywhere to provide a quilt with each bed that is delivered. Quilts Across America was initiated by Studio 180 Design and Tucker University in July 2023. Help make this the largest quilting project in America and complete the process of getting kids, Off the floor, Into a Bed, and Under a Quilt. 

All children deserve a safe, comfortable place to lay their heads. Across the US, too many boys and girls go without a bed—or even a pillow—to sleep on. These children end up sleeping on couches, blankets, and even floors. This can affect their happiness and health. That’s where Sleep in Heavenly Peace comes in. A group of volunteers dedicated to building, assembling, and delivering top-notch bunk beds to children and families in need.

As one of the Island Batik Ambassador sponsors, Studio 180 Design have provided each Ambassador with a tool to use to create this month’s challenge quilt. I received a Wing Clipper I tool and a Quilter’s Magic Wand tool (thanks, Deb!) so I needed to create a design that had flying geese in it. I loved that challenge!

Wing Clipper I makes flying geese up to 5½” x 10½” unfinished. Photo courtesy of Deb Tucker’s Studio 180 Design

The challenge for all Island Batik Ambassadors for June was to create:

• a lap size or larger quilt

• a project using a Studio 180 Design tool (the one that was sent to us)

• a project that included at least 30 of the units we created with the Studio 180 Design tool

• a project using any of the fabulous Island Batik fabrics that we have received

I was ready for this challenge so all I needed to do was to create a design and then dig into my Island Batik fabric stash to pull fabrics for it.

When I’m creating a pieced project such as this one, I turn to EQ8 to create my design and created “Flying Diamonds”.

I used a combination of Island Batik white solid and several fabrics from their Blenders and Neutrals in their Foundations line. I wanted three “flying diamonds” on the quilt so chose a green, turquoise, and red fabric from Island Batik’s Foundations line.

When creating the flying geese blocks, the Quilter’s Magic Wand tool was very helpful in marking the stitching lines that I needed on the fabrics. Did you know that these come in different colours? I love that!

Quilter’s Magic Wand available in lots of fun colours! Photo courtesy of Deb Tucker’s Studio 180 Design

The flying geese construction technique made 4 flying geese at one time and then they were trimmed down using the Wing Clipper I tool. This resulted in very accurate flying geese and very little fabric wastage.

The unit size I chose was 3” x 6” finished and, as my quilt blocks were 6” square finished, I needed two flying geese to create this size block. This meant that I needed to piece two flying geese units together to create one quilt block before I could stitch these into the quilt top.

Flying geese units ready to be pieced into quilt blocks

I made “mirror” flying geese units - one where the neutral fabric was the “goose” and the other where the printed fabric was the “goose”. When stitched together, they created a 6” square finished unit like this:

Flying geese units stitched together to make a 6” finished quilt block

My Oliso iron was integral to this process as there is a lot of pressing when making flying geese.

Once all of the flying geese were made, blocks created and rows stitched together, I added two borders: one in a neutral Island Batik fabric (Sprinkles) and the other in a teal from the Foundations fabrics.

We were asked to quilt the project with an all over design and I chose some swirls and circles and used a cream polyester Glide thread to do the quilting. We were also asked to do machine binding which made doing this final step very quick.

Here’s the finished Flying Diamonds project!

And some close-ups of the 3 “flying diamond” blocks.

If you haven’t tried Deb Tucker’s Studio 180 Design tools, you can find several of them at 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).

I used Aurifil thread for piecing Flying Diamonds as well as a Schmetz (80/12) needle in my sewing machine. I used Hobbs Premium Heirloom 100% cotton batting for creating the Flying Diamonds quilt sandwich.

I hope that my quilt will provide comfort to a little one and that they will enjoy it. ❤️

Be sure to check out my Chatterbox Quilt’s Facebook page to see all the other wonderful quilts created by my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors during this month’s Create for a Cause challenge.

Also, be sure to check out the other Island Batik Ambassadors’ blogs to see what else 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 with Island Batik fabrics!

Note: The products featured in this blogpost were given to me by Island Batik. Thank you!

#islandbatik #islandbatikambassador #createforacause #loveislandbatik #createwitholiso #olisoconnects #schmetz #aurifil #studio180design #hobbsbattinginside

It’s Christmas at the Grove and Fat Quarter Giveaways

It’s Week 3 of the Island Batik Paper Pieced Celebrations blog hop and my turn to present the quilt that I made for it !

The challenge for all Island Batik Ambassadors in this blog hop was to create:

• a lap size or larger quilt

• a project using a paper piecing technique

• a quilt celebrating your favourite holiday or celebration

• a project using a specific fabric collection.

In my case, the fabric collection was The Grove, A Signature Collection for Raija Salomaa of Quilters’ Treasure Chest.

Here are all the fabrics in this gorgeous collection!

The Grove fabrics are now available in your local quilt shop that stocks Island Batik fabrics.

When considering what holiday to celebrate with this stunning fabric collection, some were automatically excluded: Valentine’s Day, Easter, Canada Day, etc. With the aqua and green fabrics, Christmas seemed the most appropriate holiday for me to celebrate - and it is my favourite holiday - so Christmas at The Grove was created!

At first I envisioned a Christmas tree and used EQ8 to draft up a few ideas. While I could’ve created several small Christmas tree blocks, I thought some presents would also be interesting (the most fun part of Christmas!), so I decided on one large tree surrounded by presents. The tree would also, of course, need a star at the top. I used one of Island Batik’s blender fabrics in yellow for the star and one of their neutral foundation fabrics, Eggshell, for the creamy background. The rest of the quilt was created using the fabrics in The Grove fabric collection.

I photographed Christmas at The Grove outdoors. I’ve altered the grass colour so that you can see the quilt top better.

The technique I used for this project was “paperless” paper piecing. With this technique, you use freezer paper to create templates for the various units of the block (there may be several). When paper piecing I often find it difficult to ensure that I have enough fabric to cover the piece on the block unit template for that particular fabric so… I printed out individual templates from EQ8 onto freezer paper as well. I could then press these templates onto the appropriate fabric, cut out the fabric, peel off the freezer paper, and then know that I had sufficient fabric to use on the freezer paper unit template. These individual freezer paper templates could then be reused as required.

Victor and Salem helping cut out the individual fabric templates

The various unit templates for the tree block.

For large unit templates, such as those for the centre tree, I printed the unit templates onto regular paper, taped them together, and then glued them to the paper side of the freezer paper.

Once the unit templates were all ready to go, I would press them to the fabric and stitch next to the freezer paper template, rather than on it as in traditional paper piecing. This meant that I could easily peel away the freezer paper template after the block unit was stitched and resuse it.

The same freezer paper template was used for all four parts of the star

There were several blocks that were repeated and I was able to use the same template for each unit in these blocks. This saved on paper and time as I didn’t have to tear away the paper from the back of the stitched block.

Bottom row of the quilt assembled

Side blocks assembled

When using freezer paper templates, a reliable iron is so important and, while I didn’t get any photos during the construction process, my Oliso iron was really put to the test for this project. I really appreciated how quickly it would reheat when I was stitching, making the construction of Christmas at The Grove much faster than if I had had to wait longer for my iron to heat up again.

Yes, my Oliso iron makes me very happy 😄. Check out my video review of it here.

I used Aurifil thread to piece Christmas in The Grove as well as a Schmetz needle in my sewing machine.

You may’ve noticed that my photo of Christmas at the Grove is only the quilt top. Yes, I haven’t yet quilted it because of some family health issues and a vacation during May but mostly because I have lots of quilting ideas that I am still mulling over.

Here are a few of my thoughts:

• stitching in the ditch - at least between blocks and maybe even inside some of the blocks

• stitching a different quilt motif in each section of the centre Christmas tree

• stitching ornaments on the Christmas tree - wouldn’t metallic threads be fun for this?

• doing some ruler quilting in the blocks

Christmas in The Grove on our deck (which will be repainted this summer when the rain stops!).

If you haven’t yet tried paperless paper piecing, I highly recommend it. I find it less confusing than traditional paper piecing and much quicker with less waste.

This is the final week of the Paper Pieced Celebrations blog hop and, as with the other weeks of it, Island Batik is giving away two fat quarters from their latest fabric collections. Be sure to enter your details below for your chance to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to check out my Chatterbox Quilt’s Facebook page to see all the other wonderful quilts created by my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors during this Paper Pieced Celebrations blog hop.

Also, be sure to check out the other Island Batik Ambassadors’ blogs to see what else they’re creating 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 with Island Batik fabrics!

If you have ideas for quilting Christmas at The Grove, please leave them in the comments below.

Note: The products featured in this blogpost were given to me by Island Batik. Thank you!

#islandbatik #islandbatikambassador #paperpiecedcelebrationsbloghop #loveislandbatik #createwitholiso #olisoconnects #schmetz #aurifil

Having Fun with Funky Friends Factory and Island Batik Fabrics!

For April 2024, the Island Batik Ambassador challenge was to create a stuffed animal using a pattern from Funky Friends Factory.

If you’re not familiar with their many, many cute and whimsical stuffed toy patterns that they create, you must check out their offerings.

While we could choose any pattern we wanted (so many choices!), I decided to make the Mickey Moose pattern. It doesn’t get much more Canadian than a moose so I thought that Mickey Moose was the perfect choice!

I’m pleased to introduce you to my new studio companion, Mackenzie the Moose!

Thanks to Island Batik and Funky Friends Factory for providing me with the necessary fabric and pattern to make my version of Mickey Moose.

I used three different fabrics to make Mackenzie: Island Batik Foundations in Sprinkle for his body and two fabrics from the Woodstock fabric collection by Kathy Engle for Canton Village Quilt Works for the antlers, inside the ears, and the hooves and foot pads. I used Aurifil thread to stitch Mackenzie together.

You might notice that Mackenzie looks just a bit different from your typical moose and this is because he’s a very special albino moose. Yes, they do exist but you may never see them because they are very rare.

While Mackenzie is an albino moose, he’s also a Canadian moose and is proud to show his Canadian pride with his maple leaf tattoo. (I think he got this idea from the members of the RCMP Musical Ride 😉).

I chose the Mickey Moose pattern as it reminded of a series of books that my children loved to read when they were young. The Elliot the Moose books were created by Canadian author, Andrea Beck, and both myself and my children enjoyed following Elliot’s adventures with his friends.

Mackenzie calls to mind one particular Elliot the Moose book, Elliot’s Emergency where Elliot needs the help of his friends to stitch him up after an unfortunate snag and tear incident. Like Elliot, Mackenzie needed some hand stitching to make him complete.

While I don’t usually make stuffed animals, I was really pleased at how Mackenzie turned out. Yes, there are quite a few templates to make him but they are well labelled and indicate the number you need to cut of each and if you need to cut any reversed ones.

I printed out the templates on regular paper and glued them to the paper side of freezer paper. I then ironed them to the right side of the chosen fabrics and cut out the fabric pieces. By using freezer paper templates, I was able to reuse the templates when necessary and I’ll have them should I wish to create another Mickey Moose.

I really appreciated the step-by-step photo tutorial on the Funky Friends Factory website that gave additional information on how to successfully create my version of Mickey Moose. I found this and the other general information about working with her patterns that Pauline at Funky Friends Factory has on her website to be very helpful.

A few things that I would recommend when making any of the Funky Friends Factory stuffies:

• Use a lot of thin, sharp pins! Close pinning will ensure successful stitching.

• Mark everything from the templates onto your fabrics. This will help when you need to match up A to B or sew from G to H to M to H to G, for example.

• Read all the instructions through at least twice to ensure that you understand the process and watch the videos recommended for your pattern.

• Trust the pattern and take your time when stitching pieces together. I slowed my sewing machine down to a crawl and it made it very easy to ensure that everything was lining up properly and that I wasn’t creating any unintentional (and undesired!) fabric tucks.

Mackenzie has already made himself at home in my quilt studio as a studio assistant along with Salem and Victor – at least Mackenzie doesn’t shed fur on my Island Batik projects!

Mackenzie and Salem

Mackenzie and Victor

Be sure to check out the blogposts of my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors to see their cute creations using Funky Friends Factory patterns. 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

Note: The products featured in this blogpost were given to me by Island Batik and Funky Friends Factory. Thank you!

#islandbatik #islandbatikambassador #loveislandbatik #createwitholiso #olisoconnects #aurifil #aurifilthread #funkyfriendsfactory #schmetz