I am so excited to be featured on the Great Outdoors Blog Hop – generously sponsored by Island Batik. Being on the second to last day – and on Labor Day in the US – is either a bonus (people have time to read) or not (people are out celebrating). If you are here, thank you! There are giveaways! One on the Island Batik blog and my blog (see bottom of blog). The fabric and Hobbs thermore battingand some Aurifil threads were given to me by the Island Batik company – thank you very much! It is such a pleasure to work with these companies. The last time you saw this fabric it looked like this.
Let me present to you Sweet Tweets. It is a beautiful line full of gorgeous color – lots of greens, oranges, blues, and a touch of red.
DESIGN
The theme was the Great Outdoors and our challenge was to find a way to show all the fabrics. Twenty fabrics fit pretty easily into a traditional quilt and I felt drawn to something simple that let the fabrics shine. I was trying blocks on point and a few other things in Electric Quilt 8* w Windows! One can look out of a window and see any of these things: dragonflies, birds, leaves, flowers, raindrops or even geometric designs! For my quilt, I choose a version of the attic window block. May I present to you…My Victorian Window.
Almost a year ago, we sold our victorian home. We lived in it for 20 years and it was time – our son was out of college and worked for a year (living with us), my husband was retired, and we had a house in Maine. I love that house and do miss many of the wonderful things about it , but it was the right decision for us.
For those of you who don’t know Victorian houses (I didn’t until I lived in one), many of these houses have elaborate ornamental woodwork. One of the common things is the bull’s eye cornerstone; that became my cornerstones in the border. As I sized up the fabric, I needed some background so I added in an Island Batik foundation, butter. I was given the light green dragonfly and the dark green flowers as extra yardage, but I didn’t want the windows to be so green! So, yellow was perfect.
PATTERN
The cutting and assembly was pretty easy (and in fact will be a pattern in the near future). It is well suited to a precut layer cake. My squares were cut at 8.5″ inches (I actually wanted rectangles, but didn’t bring all the yardage with me so change of plan). My window sills/lattice were cut at 2.5″ so the blocks finished at 10″. I didn’t like that there was no delineation on the bottom sill, so as I was working on it a tiny strip was added to the bottom sill. Borders were cut at 4.5″ and the cornerstones at 4.5″ square. I drew the circles in EQ8 so I could print out the templates. The appliqué was done with that luscious 50 wt Aurifil #1148. For this I used a zig zag stitch set at a width of 2.5 and a length of .8. That is a pretty useful setting for my Janome 3160QC. Enough to contain the edges, but not enough to drift off into sleep while doing that stitching. All in all it was a fast quilt!
QUILTING
I asked a new friend to machine quilt it! We used the Hobbs Cotton batting, and it was a true delight. It has a lovely feel and drape. Her name is Linda Deming of Linda’s Longarm Quilting Services near Freeport, Maine. Even if you have been to Maine the name of this town probably sounds familiar. Below is one of the symbols of Freeport – the LLBean boot! I met Linda at MQX in April while taking an EQ8 class. If you need her, let me know – she has a very good turn around time – which is sometimes hard to find. And yes, drop off and pick up did include a run to the flagship store!
I love the flowieness (is that a word) of the pattern Linda choose. To me it makes it look like a windy day outside My Victorian Window. The pattern is from Urban Elements and called Bayside.
BINDING
I used two different fabrics in the blue-green colorway as binding. I had some green left, but to me it was going to make the quilt more green than I wanted. This choice also helped give the cornerstones some continuity, too. My labels are from an Etsy shop, Tagtopia. I love it because I almost always remember and I am now keeping them with the Clover wonder clips*. This brain needs all the help I can get these days! I have a tutorial for how I do my other labels, which you can find here. I enjoyed doing the hand binding – a side each evening – it worked out to take about 3-4 threaded needles. I use this thread minder* and would have a couple needles threaded when I began AND when I stopped I threaded them for the next day. This makes it easier to pick up where you left off.
GIVEAWAYS!
Now for the fun stuff! Here are the giveaway links:
My giveaway will run for a week, ending September 9. Due to shipping costs, only US residents, please. Please comment by telling me: How do you follow my blog? Bloglovin or direct Email or an RSS feed?
But wait, there’s more!
Island Batik is hosting a GIANT giveaway for this blog hop! Be sure to enter on their blog.
It is a great honor to be an ambassador and work with such a wonderful company. Just for kicks, while not in Bali this photo is on an island in Maine where I get to spend a lot of time.
And for those who follow, and love my Percy, here are two shots of him at the photo shoot. I think he was quite bored. I, however, was in heaven!
I am every grateful for your support and appreciate you following me and putting up with some of the silliness. Have a terrific week!
Love all of this: the ocean, the quilt, the socks, and the man behind the quilt!
Linking up:
Cooking up Quilts: Main Crush Monday
Pretty Piney: What I Made Monday
Free Motion on the River: Linky Tuesday
Clever Chameleon: Colour Inspiration Tuesday
Powered by Quilting: Friday Foto Fun
Disclaimer: *Links with asterisk indicate an affiliate link. Your price is not any different, but a small percentage of the sale will go to supporting my blog.
