Island Batik Ambassador- May Project- Triangle Tricks Challenge- Dashing Diamonds

As an Island Batik Ambassador, this month’s challenge was to to mix it up and use triangles instead of the usual squares and rectangles.  I chose to put my triangles in a box.

I went to my Electric Quilt 8 software program and started playing around with triangle in a square layouts and then colored in the design with the actual fabrics from Island Batik. Here is the digital image of my design. The colorful batiks are laid out vertically, creating diamonds and the dark and light pieces are laid out horizontally, creating a tumbling effect.

 

I used the Island Batik collection called Mountain Gems for this project, along with Mint and Bridgewater. Mountain Gems contains gorgeous blue and green batiks from Bali. This fabric collection should be in shops now that carry Island Batik, such as Hancocks of Paducah. You may find them at their store in Paducah, KY, or online at www.hancocks-paducah.com  or by phone at 800-845-8723.

Triangles can be a little tricky to sew as it is sometimes difficult to determine how to line up the pieces before you sew them. Sometimes they need to overlap 1/4,” sometimes more, and sometimes not at all. So I decided to cut out my triangle in a square pieces with my Accuquilt cutter and dies as the pieces line up perfectly and all you have to do is concentrate on sewing a good 1/4.”

When making a triangle in a square, half of the side pieces need to be reversed. This is where the beauty of working with Island Batiks comes into play. There isn’t a noticeable right or wrong side to the fabric, so when I was cutting out the shapes, I didn’t need to worry if the fabric needed to be placed right side up or right side down.

After I had the quilt top all pieced, I decided to do some ruler work quilting on my Janome 6600. I used Hobbs Premium 80/20 batting, a Schmetz quilting needle, and a variegated 50 weight thread from Aurifil. Since the quilt top had a lot of angular lines, I wanted some curvy quilting, so I used the Good Measures Circle rulers by Amanda Murphy to create some intersecting arcs.

By slowing the speed of my machine down, and using a teflon slider on the bed of the machine, it was easy to quilt around the curve of the ruler. Here is a close up of some of the quilting I did.

Here is the finished quilt and a close up of it.

 

The photo shoot of the quilt can be almost as much fun as making the quilt. Here are some more pictures from the photo shoot at a local park. There is a quilt on a rail. a quilt on a tree, a quilt by a tree, a quilt on a bridge and a quilt on a Reed. There is a short Instagram reel of me wearing the quilt. My Instagram handle is @bluebearquilts.

 

 

There where many birds in the park and this one was curious as to what I was doing.

 

The supplies I used to make this project were provided by:

Island Batik Mountain Gems collection and Mint and Bridgewater.

Aurifil 50 wt Thread (variegated)

Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Bleached Batting

Schmetz 70/10 Quilting needle

Accuquilt Go! Big Cutter and 8″ Qube die

Thank you Island Batik, Aurifil Thread, Hobbs Batting, Schmetz Needles and Accuquilt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In May 2022, we are offering 20% off two digital download quilt patterns the feature Island Batik fabric. They are South Seas Shuffle Quilt and Timberland Tumble Quilt. The link to these patterns is here: downloadable-patterns/

Blue Bear says hi!

Please let him know how much you like his Dashing Diamonds quilt, by writing to him in the comments. The comment box is at the top left of the blog post, below Reed’s picture. There will be a pattern coming out for Dashing Diamonds this summer.

The other amazing Island Batik Ambassadors are also posting their May Triangle Tricks Challenge projects. Check out their projects by clicking on the links next to their names to be directed to their blog posts.

#islandbatikambassador #islandbatik #iloveislandbatik #aurifil #aurifilthread #schmetzneedles #bernina #janome #EQ8 #electricquilt #hobbsbatting #accuquilt