Island Batik Ambassador- December 2023 Project- Winter Solstice Quilt- Part of the Celebration Challenge

The Island Batik Ambassadors are challenged this month to make any project they want that is inspired from a celebration. And they are using Island Batik fabric of course. I can’t wait to see all of their celebration inspired projects. Links to the other Ambassador’s blogs may be found at the bottom of this post.

 

For my fabric selection, I needed yardage and I had the Island Batik Porcelain Blue Collection which was perfect for a winter celebration theme. Island Batik fabrics may be found at your local quilt shop that carries Island Batik, such as Fabric Smart in St. Petersburg FL. You may also find them online at www.fabric-smart.com or call them at 727-914-8850. Another online option for you to shop for this fabric would be Hancocks of Paducah: Hancocks of Paducah

The Winter Solstice marks the shortest day of the year and there are many Winter Solstice celebrations that occur around this time such as Christmas and Hanukkah. The Winter Solstice marks the lengthening of days, leading to its reputation as a time of rebirth. The Porcelain Blue collection with its blues, ranging from light to dark, and coordinating the collection with white was the perfect palette to signify this transition from dark to light. The Porcelain Blue collection definitely has a wintery feel to it.

 

The quilt I made, is a nice lap size measuring 56″ x 68.” The range of blues, paired with white, gives this quilt a cool, crisp feeling, yet it’s inviting and would be great to snuggle under next to a fire.

I designed the quilt in Electric Quilt 8. This is a rendering of the pattern in EQ8. It’s amazing how close it looks to the final quilt when you are able to download the fabric jpegs into the program and work with the actual fabrics before you ever buy or start cutting them.

To make this quilt, I first needed to cut the fabric into different size strips. It was a breeze with my heavy duty Quilter’s Select rotary cutter and the Creative Grids Quick Trim and Circle ruler. 

There are 19 different fabrics in this quilt, so you end up with quite a stack of beautiful blue strips. This quilt, while it looks complicated, is really pretty easy to make if you can sew strips together and then use a specialty ruler to trim the sewn 9-patch blocks. 

One of the steps is to make strip sets with a blue in the middle and white strips on either side of the blue strip. If you want your points to look sharp, it is necessary to sew with an accurate 1/4″ seam. 

Next, the strip sets are sub cut into units that will be used to make a modified 9 patch block. The units for a block get laid out like the picture below.

 

The units are sewn together in a modified 9 patch. The block is pressed so that it lays nice and flat.

Now that the block is sewn, you used the X-Block ruler to trim it into a block that looks like an X. In order to get your seams to line up in the blocks, it is necessary to be careful in trimming the blocks and making sure that all the markings on the ruler are lined up correctly.

In order to make this quilt, mirror image blocks are used, so it is necessary to flip the ruler over so the backside is up and trim 50% of the blocks this way. This is what creates the illusion of the ribbons intertwining in the quilt.

Since you are trimming 4 corners off of the original modified 9 patch block, there can be a lot of waste. However, the instructions that come with the X-Block ruler have instructions for how to sew these waste pieces into a border that could be used in the quilt.

 

This quilt can be a little tricky to make sure that it is laid out correctly. To make sure that I got it right, I laid the blocks out on a bed to make sure they were forming the pattern. Then I sew the blocks together in rows, pressing the seams open. Finally, I sewed the rows together and again pressed the seams open.

 

This quilt is fairly easy to quilt on your domestic machine using a walking foot. I echo quilted each of the ribbons. What that means is that I stitched approximately 1/4″ next to the seams on the ribbon.

 

Here is a closeup to show the echo quilting on the quilt. I chose a light blue variegated Aurifil thread so that it would blend fairly well with the white and the various blues. I used Hobbs Thermore Batting and it is wonderful to use when quilting on your domestic machine as it is thin, lays flat and holds the layers together nicely. If you would like to see a video of me making this quilt, I  have a video on my You/Tube Channel at “Blue Bear Quilts.” Here is a link to the YouTube video where you can watch: Making the Winter Solstice Quilt If you like the video, please be sure to like it, share it with your friends and subscribe so you don’t miss any upcoming videos.

Here I am with the finished quilt. I hope you like it. Below is a closeup of the quilt so you can see some of those luscious Island Batik fabrics.

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

Island Batik Porcelain Blue fabric collection.

Aurifil 50 wt Thread- variegated light blue

Schmetz 70/10 Quilting needle

Hobbs Batting Hobbs Thermore Batting 

If you are on TikTok, be sure to check out the video I have posted with the quilt. (Look for Blue Bear Quilts)

Also, please follow me on Instagram (Blue Bear Quilts) as that is where I occasionally have giveaways. 

Blue Bear hopes you like this festive, wintery lap quilt. Please let him know how much you love it by writing to him in the comments!

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

Emily Leachman, The Darling Dogwood

Sarah Pitcher, Pitcher’s Boutique

Claudia Porter, Create with Claudia

Brenda Alburl, Songbird Designs

Elita Sharpe, Busy Needle Quilting

Reed Johnson, Blue Bear Quilts   Thanks for stopping by!

Suzy Webster, Websterquilt

Preeti Harris, Sew Preeti Quilts

Renee Atkinson, Pink Tulip Quilting

Denise Looney, For the Love of Geese

Gail Sheppard, Quilting Gail

Anorina Morris, Samelia’s Mum

Sandra Starley, Textile Time Travels

Susan Deshensky, Lady Blue Quilts

Randi Jones, Randi’s Roost

Brittany Fisher, Bobbin with Brittany

Lisa Pickering, Lisa’s Quilting Passion

Victoria Johnson, Forever Quilting for You

Mania Hatziioannidi, Mania for Quilts

Lana Russel, Lana Quilts

Pamela Boatright, Pamela Quilts

Jennifer Thomas, Curlicue Creations

Maryellen McAuliffe, Mary Mack Made Mine

Leah Malasky, Quilted Delights

Connie Kauffman, Kauffman Designs

#islandbatikambassador #islandbatik #iloveislandbatik #hobbsbatting #aurifil #aurifilthread #schmetzneedles #doyoueq #Janome #electricquilt #eq8 #HancocksofPaducah #fabricsmart