Walensee Quilt
This month is "Inspired by Nature" Island batik Ambassador's Blog Hop! Are you feeling inspired already?! Don't forget to enter both giveaways at the bottom of this post!
"The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik"
Click the image to visit Island Batik's website
#islandbatik #thebestfrombali #islandbatikambassador #batik #bali #bloghop #inspiredbynature #walensee #switzerland #flumserberg #unterterzen #nature #see #skiing #mountain #mountains #aurifil #aurifilthread #hobbsbatting #diamonds #piecingdiamonds #schmetzneedles #handiquilter #pfaff #pfaffsewing #creativeicon #hqamara #cococabana #cococabanacollection #giveaway
I was already inspired by my super secret (until now) surprise bundle for this challenge (remember those super wrapped shinny packages on my last Ambassador's unboxing video?!).
Let's start talking about this. The Island Batik collection for my blog hop project is "Coco Cabana" designed by Kathy Engle.
It's beautiful, isn't it?! I was very lucky with the perfect shades for an "inspired by nature" project ;)
The turquoise shade automatically reminded me of a very special place for my family in Switzerland. We use to pass by the Walensee on our way to Flumserberg during our ski trips. It is where my kids learned to ski, it is less than an hour from our home there, besides the breathtaking view. It's definitely an all year destination!
Credit: © Carolina Asmussen Designs
And now some tips to sew mesh fabric! Mesh fabric can be stretchy so take an extra care to keep it flat while sewing and don't pull, otherwise the fabric will be deformed. Always stitch the mesh fabric on top and the cotton fabric on bottom, or keep the mesh fabric between two layers of cotton fabric. (you don't want your sewing machine's feed dogs to get stuck on the mesh fabric). If your machine has a dual feed, like the IDT on my Pfaff Creative Icon in the images below, now is the perfect time to use it and make sure the machine is feeding both layers of the fabric at same time without slipping. Wonder clips are also pretty handy when working with mesh fabric!
For the blog hop project, besides the theme the goal is also to show case all the beautiful shades of the fabric collection. So I decided to work with 2 1/2" stripes and cut it at a 30 degree angle (yes some geometry for you!) in diamond shapes. The design composition of the quilt happened in a very spontaneous way, as I was cutting the fabric and playing with the different shades and motives.
Another very important thing to consider when sewing with mesh fabric is to always coordinate the thread color with the fabric color, because the stitches WILL show up. For this project I was using Aurifil 50wt in colors 1135, 1148, 2545 and 2810 and they match perfectly as you can see on the image below:
When I was happy with the result, I started to piece the diamonds together with my Pfaff Creative Icon and Schmetz topstitch needle size 80/12.
If your machine has an integrated dual transportation (IDT) it is the perfect project to use it, because you want to make sure that the top and bottom fabric are being fed at the same time without any slippage. It is a precise piecing project!
The Walensee quilt has already a lot of piecing information, because it is a composition panel quilt with different shades and fabric designs, so for projects like this one I like to keep the quilting very simple and basic. The batting is an important factor to consider while choosing the quilting style. For this quilt I used Hobbs Tuscany Collection in Silk Blend, it is a lightweight blend of silk and fine polyester and can be used for hand or machine quilting. I choose to quilt with vertical straight lines every 1", just to keep the layers together. The color of the thread is also very important in this case, because the wrong choice can totally ruin the quilt. I used Aurifil 50wt color 2330, it was the perfect color option to blend with most of the fabrics.
And here is the overall image!
"Walensee", size 33" x 44 1/2"
And last but not least... Don't forget to enter the Inspired by Nature Blog Hop Week's giveaway, just click on the image below to get there!
"Inspired by Nature" blog hop GIVEAWAY!
And also my GIVEAWAY on Instagram starting by the end off the day (also click the image to get there), only US, rules on my post there, closes on Sunday 11.15 at 10pm NYC time! Good luck and come play with me :)
