December Island Batik Challenge

disclosure

The December challenge is;

• Any size 
• Bring 3D into your project by any method of your choice

Though I’m not sure why, this was  a challenging theme for me. I went back and forth for months between an art quilt using depth perception and op art.  I even started out making an op art quilt but I didn’t really care much for the effect.

Then I moved on to 3d flowers. For 2 weeks I drew, cut and stitched flower petals. I even dug out an old Dogwood Applique pattern I’ve had for years. While it would be pretty to look at it wouldn’t be a functional quilt.  Next I took a patchwork rose design and played with prairie points, wrinkles nose.

Why am I driving myself crazy when I know what I really want to make?  Flying geese! One seam flying geese, aka 3d flying geese.  In the past I have used the one seam flying geese for borders and even made a scrap quilt a few years ago with one seam  flying geese bars.

After a lot of searching I finally  decided to make the Dutchman’s Puzzle.  And I thought I would share with you how to make your own.

What you will need

Your choice of 3 fabrics, I chose the white, gray and black Island Batik Solids, they have the same tight weave as their printed fabrics.

AccuQuilt dies

• 55709- 2 1/2″ square
• 55715- 2 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ rectangle
• You could also use the 2 1/2″ strip die

No AccuQuilt?

• 2 1/2″ pre-cuts or cut your own from yardage.

For each block you will need to:

• Cut 16-  2 1/2″ x 2 1/2″ squares white
• Cut 4-    2 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ black rectangles
• Cut 4-     2 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ gray rectangles

Fold the rectangles in half and place on top of one 2 1/2″ square as shown  below with the fold on top.  Line up the bottom corners , the fold will be 1/4″ below the top of the white square. Sorry, not sure what happen to a couple of these photos and I don’t know what to do to fix them.

Place the second 2 1/2″ square on top to form a sandwich. Fold is up, sew 1/4″ seam down the right side.

Open the sandwich as shown below and press the seam. I like to  press seams in opposite directions. Gray seams right, black seams left.

Now to turn them into geese. Raise one corner of the gray fabric.

Line up the center seam and the crease from your geese and press open.

That’s it. Sew your geese together using 1/4 seam. If the geese flaps are being unruly  add a small dot of Elmers washable school glue to hold them in place while joining the blocks..

Quilting

Oh no, I hadn’t thought about this in advance. There isn’t much negative space and quilting over all these geese defeats the purpose of making 3d geese. I did my best to quilt around them and there was some unstitching going on when I clipped an edge of the geese while quilting.  There wasn’t much else I could do other than meandering in the white patches.

For batting I used Warm N Natural 100% cotton.  Superior MasterPiece thread for piecing and quilting.

See what others are working on

View links to other Island Batik Ambassadors

MONDAY