Patchwork Flowers finish

It’s done and I love it. Last week I shared my progress and couldn’t decide on a border. Many of you offered suggestions that were greatly appreciated. You can find that post here.

This post was made possible by Island Batik, Hobbs Batting, Schmetz Needles, AccuQuilt and Aurifil Thread. Disclosure may be found by clicking here. Thank you for your support.

Floral Quilt Block

In box 1 from Island Batik I received 10″ Precuts of Garden Gems designed by Kathy Engle for Deb Tucker’s Studio 180. This collection is so beautiful and none of the photos truly do them justice. The background and sashing is Custard. Custard is a very soft yellow and white mottled background with subtle green leaves. This is my new favorite background fabric. Fellow Ambassador MaryMackMadeMine sells Island Batik in her Etsy Shop and ordered a bolt for me.

For piecing I used Aurifil 50wt thread (tried others but keep going back to Aurifil) and Schmetz Topstitch Chrome Needles, Size 80/12. Love these needles for sewing batik fabric.

Using the 1 1/2″ Finished Strip Die from AccuQuilt I cut my sashing. The 1 1/2″ Finished HST (that I now see I misplaced a couple) Die made making these almost fail proof. If they don’t come out correctly you’ve not sew an accurate 1/4″ seam. One thing I have noticed since using the HST Die’s,after stitching your hst’s press and allow the fabric to cool before pressing open. Not sure why this makes a difference but it does, the fabric doesn’t seem to distort. Maybe its just me?

Quilt Border

Oh yes I did, I added this bright cheerful yellow border to match the flower centers and I LOVE IT!!! Yellow is my favorite color and I seldom use it in my quilts. Why? It’s hard to find a nice yellow and this is an amazing color called Daffodil . Island Batik sent this and purple coordinating fabric with the 10″ precut squares. I thought about adding a narrow border of purple then the yellow, it just didn’t look as happy. For the border I used the 3″ Finished Strip die from AccuQuilt.

Quilting

For quilting I used Hobbs Natural Cotton Batting with scrim. As long as my thread doesn’t jump out of the main tensioner it quilts beautifully, so light and airy. There was some unpicking of stitches when my thread decided it didn’t like being between the tension disks.

Quilt Binding

Since receiving the AccuQuilt 2 1/2″ Strip Die in 2019 I had not used anything else to cut my binding until this quilt. For this one, the same 1 1/2″ strip die used for the sashing cut the single fold binding.

I forgot to mention the quilting thread which is also Aurifil. It is 40wt 3 ply longarm quilting thread that comes on a yellow cone. Thanks to MaryMackMadeMine for introducing me to it. She has an Etsy Shop where you can find Island Batik fabric and Aurifil Thread.

Finished Patchwork Floral

It was a little windy outside today and it kept blowing off the old truck. It’s a good thing the underbrush in the woods is beginning to fill the empty space and my neighbors couldn’t see me trying to hold the quilt in place and jump back to snap the photo, hence the funky angle.

The fence worked well but now I see it’s time to power wash the wings of my house, first I have more sewing to do for the Island Batik Blog Hop next month. Be sure to stop by May 3rd (Monday) for my finish.