Goin' Through Time - Time in a Bottle Blog Hop

   Welcome to the first day of the

Time in a Bottle Blog Hop!

I'm happy to kick things off with

"Goin' Through Time"

Carol at Just Let Me Quilt presented bloggers with the challenge to make something

with an hourglass block.

Thank you, Carol, for inviting me to join this super fun blog hop!

I hinted back in November about this quilt and what I had in mind to make

when I made this mug rug for the

No Ring November Blog Hop. 

I'm trying to use as much of my stash fabric as possible this year

and I cut strips of varying widths to fit with the hourglass blocks.

It was so fun to design and put together this 

Rainbow Hourglass quilt

that I call

Goin' Through Time

because the strips go "through" the hourglass blocks.

I have a free tutorial to make hourglass blocks that I made several years ago.

Click HERE for that.

Goin' Through Time

 is about 40" x 50" and is quilted with a simple meander.

The backing is a grey Minky fabric for coziness.

I love to make quilts in rainbow colors.

Want some more

Hourglass block inspiration?

Here is the full schedule:

March 14
Creatin' in the Sticks (you are here)
Vroomans Quilts
Patchouli Moon Studio
Samelia's Mum
Days Filled With Joy
Elizabeth Coughlin Designs
Stitchin At Home
 
March 15
MooseStashQuilting
Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel
The Darling Dogwood
Quilting Gail
Time 4 Stitchn
Beaquilter
 
March 16
 Inflorescence
Lynn's Blog
Karen's Korner
Stitching Farm Girl
Scrapdash
Familypatchworks
 
March 17
Ms P Designs USA
Quilt Schmilt
That Fabric Feeling
Quilted Delights
Words & Stitches
Selina Quilts
 
March 18
Just Let Me Quilt
Bumbleberry Stitches
Karrin’s Crazy World
Lianne Makes Stuff
Crazy'boutquilts
Songbird Designs

It's so fun to get inspiration from Blog Hops.

I'm sure we will have way too many ideas swimming in our heads by the end of the week.

See you next month for Joan's

Wonderful World of Color 

(my kind of hop for sure...)

Official sign-ups for the May Blog Hop will start soon 

(after the Time in a Bottle blog hop is over).

Stay tuned for the announcement here at 

Creatin' in the Sticks.

Try It! - A Day at the Beach

The June challenge for the Island Batik Ambassadors is

Try It!

Today is my day to show

A Day at the Beach
with a new, to me, piecing technique.

The challenge was to face our fears or sewcrastination and step outside the box to try a technique that is new to our sewing toolbox. There were no rules other than to try something new and use the fabrics that Island Batik provided in the Ambassador Box.

I had bookmarked an article in the May 2008 issue of American Quilter magazine by Scott A Murkin, "Strata Quilts: Layer upon Layer" that inspired my quilt. It's all about freeform curved piecing, a technique I had never tried but had always wanted to.

I started with an Island Batik

"French Blue" package of 10" squares.

Next, the blocks were paired with right sides up and a soft curve was cut with a rotary cutter.

The pieces were switched and stitched with matching Aurfil 50 wt thread. Then the process was repeated.

Each block has 8 curvy pieces and the process was so much fun.

The blocks were trimmed after they were stitched.

They were pretty wonky before they were trimmed to 7 1/2" but that was part of the fun.

The 8" border is also from the "French Blue" collection by Kathy Engle and is Paisley in Sky.

The finished size is about 57" x 57" and is perfect to wrap up in.

The colors of the quilt remind me of the beach and the quilting is just a simple wave design.

A Day at the Beach was too much fun.

I really loved doing this curvy improv technique and really can't wait to try it again.

You can find the full list of Island Batik ambassadors posting for the 

Try It! challenge 

by clicking HERE.

What will you be trying next?

Make It Modern with Hobbs - Trig Play

The May challenge for the Island Batik Ambassadors is

Make it Modern with Hobbs.

Today is my day to show

Trig Play
with a new, to me, batting technique.

As Island Batik Ambassadors,

this month is our second industry partner spotlight challenge
and

we are to use any of the Hobbs Battings provided to create a Modern Quilt.

The biggest challenge this month for me was deciding which of the modern characteristics my quilt might include.

A modern quilt as defined by the Modern Quilt Guild (the use of bold colors and prints, high contrast and graphic areas of solid color, improvisational piecing, Minimalism, expansive negative space, alternate grid work)

I chose an Island Batik Basic, Butternut, and the black and white fabrics from the ambassador fabrics that were provided.

I was going for minimalism with expansive negative space and designed a large triangle pattern.

Once the quilt top was finished, it was time to choose which Hobbs batting to use and black seemed to be the obvious choice.

But, I was concerned about the large white triangles looking grey with the black batting.
As luck would have it, I was able to visit with Steph in the Hobbs Batting booth during quilt market and fellow Island Batik ambassador, Jennifer - The Inquiring Quilter. was there too.

Steph suggested putting white Hobbs Thermore batting behind the white triangles to keep the white fabric from greying out with the black batting.

In order to do this, I simply cut triangles from the batting with the same pattern that the fabric triangles were cut from. As I quilted on my long arm, I placed the white batting pieces under the white fabric triangles and right on top of the black batting.

Next, I just placed the quilt top over the layers of batting and quilted as normal. The white batting stayed in place with no problem and I just love how the white stayed white and the quilting has so much texture.

I quilted with more triangles
and
for the quilting in the butternut triangles, I added a little sunshine and circles for a bit of quilting contrast.
The color of the butternut batik makes me think of Tuscany and the sun quilting seemed to fit.

The binding is black with 4 random stripes of the butternut to mark my 4th Island Batik Ambassador challenge and I thought it added a little modern touch to the binding.
Trig Play finished at 42" x 50".

You can find the full list of Island Batik ambassadors posting for the 

Make It Modern with Hobbs Challenge

by clicking HERE.

It was so fun to play with a new batting technique and I will definitely do it again!
Thanks, Hobbs!