Welcome to my day on the Adventurous Applique Blog Hop with Aurifil! This month Island Batik teamed up with industry partner Aurifil threads for this fun blog hop. Our challenge was to use the half yard bundle of NEW Spring ’24 fabric collections, along with Aurifil thread to create an applique quilt using the edge coloring technique introduced several years ago by Fourth and Sixth Designs, Barbara Persing and Mary Hoover. Mary has since retired, but Barbara is carrying on the beautiful quilt patterns, including the Full Bloom pattern, on her website.
For this hop, I received a half yard bundle of Flower Pot, a signature collection for Jennifer Fulton of the Inquiring Quilter! I also received a two yard cut of a basic, Oatmeal, as well as two yards of Pink Grenadine, which is a part of the Flower Pot collection! It is so bright and cheerful! In addition, I received five spools of 40 wt Aurifil thread, which is a fantastic thread for embroidery, and especially this type of raw edge applique! There are also some greens that I pulled from my stash for the leaves and Island Batik solid white for the daisies!
I knew exactly what I wanted to make for this challenge. Through the years, I have purchased a lot of art work while I was digitizing, and decided to turn some of it into applique! So, I fired up my Electric Quilt 8 software (EQ8) and began the process of turning that art work into applique! I love using EQ8 for all my projects. The hardest part was deciding which of these beautiful fabrics to use in which blocks! I have three sized blocks in my quilt, the four butterfly blocks which measure 20 x 22, the four sun blocks and the four flower blocks measuring 12 inches square, and the middle block measuring 9 inches square. To make it a rectangle instead of a square, I added two borders at the top and bottom, then a second border all around of the Pink Grenadine! I love this one!! Here is my finished project, Floral Fauna.
Here are some closeups of the elements of the flora and the fauna!!
Floral Fauna measures about 57 x 65 inches. I used ALL the SKUs in the Island Batik Flower Pot collection, and all five 40 wt Aurifil threads, plus a couple from my stash! All piecing was done using 50 wt Aurifil thread, which is the only thread I use for piecing quilts, and an 80/12 nonstick Schmetz needle. The batting is Hobbs Tuscany Collection Supreme 100% unbleached cotton batting. This batting is soft and thick and it quilted beautifully, but a word of warning if you try it. I tend to tug on my batting when I roll my quilt so as to smooth it out. Be careful not to tug too hard, it will tear (ask me how I know!!) But, it is so soft and cuddly, I just love it! My Oliso iron was used to press the fabric and prepare it for cutting! I used my AccuQuilt 8″ Qube for the 4-1/2″ squares in the borders on top and bottom and my 2-1/2″ strip cutter for the outer borders and binding.
I had so much fun with this project. Edge-coloring applique is now my favorite type of applique. It doesn’t leave the quilt stiff from fusible and it’s easy. I used my open toe foot on my domestic to tack down the appliques using free motion after they were glued using Roxanne’s Glue-Baste It. You can see exactly how this technique is accomplished in the video below.
Many thanks to Island Batik, Aurifil, Schmetz Needles, Oliso, and Hobbs Batting for providing the supplies used in making this quilt. I think it is my new favorite!!
The Flower Pot collection should be in stores now. Here are a few places you can check!
My Favorite Quilt Store in Texas
Creekside Quilts in Oregon
Sew Biz in Virginia
Fiber Art Gallery in Florida
I hope you will visit my fellow ambassadors this week and see what lovely edge coloring creations they have made! Here is the schedule:
September 9:
- Brenda Alburl, Songbird Designs – You are HERE!!
- Lisa Pickering, Lisa’s Quilting Passion
September 10:
September 11:
September 12:
- Carol Stanek, Stitch With Color
- Julia Schweri, Inflorescence Designs
- Victoria Johnson, Forever Quilting For You
September 13:
Blog Hop Round-Up Week 2 and Giveaway
Head over to the Island Batik Blog HERE and enter this giveaway!
The giveaway ends on September 7th. Two random winners will be notified by email on September 8th.
Thanks so much for your visit. Have a great week. Until next time…
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Hi Brenda, what a gorgeous quilt. The fabric, the design…it’s all wonderful! Thanks so much for linking up to Free Motion Mavericks.
Brenda I’m absolutely bowled over by this stunning quilt! Even with the peeks we’ve had it is just sew much more than I had anticipated. Your art into appliqué really worked out perfectly for this hop. Thank you for linking with To-Do Tuesday and sharing our linky party. I hope this past week has had you satisfied with your progress on your other projects. 🤗 Carol
Hi Brenda, your quilt is really stunning! Congrats.
Thank you for linking up to Put your foot down, I still love your finish and detail stitching.
Beautiful quilt, Brenda!
Art into applique – you nailed it! Beautiful work!
Beautiful quilt–love the colors!!
Your quilt is beautiful!
Great quilt! Adore the butterfly and all its elements!
This is absolutely beautiful, I love it!
Wow Brenda that is beautiful!! Your work is so creative and colorful!
I love what you did! Those butterflies are just gorgeous and so creative. Fun that. you can use designs you had for embroidery for applique!
Pretty flower butterflies.
What a beautiful creation Brenda! Love the gorgeous colors and fabrics. Nice that you got to use your artwork, it turned out really well.