Summer Nights Quilt
It's July and time to be fancy with Island Batik and Aurifil Artsy Fartsy Challenge!
"The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik"
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Twice a year the Island Batik Ambassadors receive boxes filled with a variety of Island Batik collections, stash builders and precuts (Don't forget to check my second unboxing video with some of the Spring/Summer new Collections!). We also receive goodies from industry partners for the upcoming challenges and this month it's Aurifil Artsy Fartsy Challenge! We had the green light to get fancy with Aurifil threads and to create a one of a kind art quilt using three different thread weights.
My idea started actually in March... When I was using my Accuquilt GO! for the very first time and did cut ALL my dark navy prints from my Stash Builders Precut... yep, I was in a "cutting spiral" for sure. So, my plan was use the 2 1/2" squares for the April's Challenge but my in house quilt police team stopped me, because it was "too dark for a baby background quilt, even if you bring the entire ocean to the quilt, mom". So "Amen" the squares were in stand by mode.
Because July is the last month of my first semester as Island Batik Ambassador, my fabric's resource were also limited, so the navy 2 1/2" squares become perfect to be the background's project!
My inspiration was one of the panels, from a "family" of panels that I designed a couple years ago on my Ipad pro with Procreate. The panel was in stand by too, like most of my ideas, waiting for the perfect fabric and time to come to live.
The 2 1/2 navy squares were pieced with Aurifil 50 wt color 2783. I really like to coordinate the thread color with my fabric shades, when I'm piecing light and dark fabrics than usually I coordinate the thread with the light fabric.
Than I started to work on my appliqué pieces drawing the swirls and flowers designs (some of them with the Crystal Ball Collection, from last fall) to Wonder-Under sheets from Pellon. I decided to use this product after watching the Pellon 805 Wonder-Under tutorial video from our very own Kim Niedzwiecki!
How cool as an artist it is to have 270 cotton colors to coordinate with all your creative ideas? Aurifil 50wt thread, one of the most versatile and popular Cotton threads of the market (the iconic orange spools) can also be used for quilting & topstitching, English Paper Piecing, Needle Turn Appliqué, Bobbin and Machine Lace, Machine Appliqué (Straight Stitch, ZigZag, Blind Hem and Blanket Stitch,) Machine Embroidery, Dense Machine Quilting, Subtle Machine and Longarm Quilting, Basting, Whole Cloth and Micro Quilting, and Dense Background Designs.
Coordinating Aurifil 50wt with my Island Batik fabrics
Besides piecing, I also decided to use Aurifil 50wt for machine appliqué the swirls and flowers.
The quilting was done on my Handi Quilter Amara with Aurifil Forty 3 (40wt/3ply) as top thread and Aurifil 50wt in the bobbin both in color 2783, and 2 layers of Hobbs Heirloom Premium 80/20 Black Cotton/Poly Blend Batting.
Why 2 layers of batting? Because my idea was to make the flowers and swirls "pop up" from my panel, using a "faux trapunto" and heavy free motion quilting on the background.
Can you see the laser point?!
Why Aurifil Forty3? Because this 3ply cotton thread was made specifically to handle the rigor of high-speed and high-tech Longarm machines (like mine!) and I also wanted to highlight all the stitches from the background. The Forty3 is currently available in 50 cotton colors and I hope the family just keep growing, long live the Forty3!
The next step was my most expected one, embellish the flowers with other thread weights and some hand embroidery magic! For this, I used Aurifil 12wt in cotton variegated colors 4657 and 3840 and Aurifil Cotton Floss colors 1133 and 2435.
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And finally the result of this "Thread Marathon"! My Summer Nights Quilt! I hope you liked it and see you next month!
Finished Size 20” square