Since 2016 I have been truly blessed to be associated with an amazing company and special people in that company - Studio 180 Design! I made the decision of becoming a Certified Studio 180 Design Instructor not really knowing what to expect. Well, let me tell you. That decision has been one of my very best decisions I have made since I quit my corporate job in hopes of starting my own business, focusing on quilt pattern designing and anything to do with quilts! So, it is with such a pleasure and excitement that I'm writing this blog post, showcasing an outstanding new batik collection for Island Batik by Studio 180 Design team, called Exuberance!
What attracted me to this collection was these wonderful, vivid colors, and wonderful movement on the designs! I had to get my hands onto these fabrics and see them myself! From my previous blog post you may recall I have been really busy (I mean, REALLY BUSY). So I needed to choose a design that would nicely showcase these fabrics while making sure I could make the quilt REALLY FAST! There was one design I recently made that was perfect for this purpose!
A week ago I finished teaching on a quilting cruise. I had brought these precut fabrics with me in hopes to get an early start on making this quilt. But...I should have known better, I didn't get much done. I worked on it for half an hour on the wee hours of one evening. And being so late at night (and having worked all day long), you guessed it, I ended up making some mistakes. So I decided to set the project aside and wait until I would get home to get started. So instead of sewing, I chose to concentrate on teaching, and yes, even relaxing a little bit while visiting this beautiful island, Perfect Day Coco Cay.
What attracted me to this collection was these wonderful, vivid colors, and wonderful movement on the designs! I had to get my hands onto these fabrics and see them myself! From my previous blog post you may recall I have been really busy (I mean, REALLY BUSY). So I needed to choose a design that would nicely showcase these fabrics while making sure I could make the quilt REALLY FAST! There was one design I recently made that was perfect for this purpose!
A week ago I finished teaching on a quilting cruise. I had brought these precut fabrics with me in hopes to get an early start on making this quilt. But...I should have known better, I didn't get much done. I worked on it for half an hour on the wee hours of one evening. And being so late at night (and having worked all day long), you guessed it, I ended up making some mistakes. So I decided to set the project aside and wait until I would get home to get started. So instead of sewing, I chose to concentrate on teaching, and yes, even relaxing a little bit while visiting this beautiful island, Perfect Day Coco Cay.
Vendla's Play Date happens to be one of my favorite quilt patterns! When I designed this quilt, I initially drew the block with a regular V Block surrounded by some rectangles on three of the sides. While you certainly could make this quilt using this method that I initially came up with, it would mean there would be five different seams to each block. If I chose to do it that way, it would also mean I would need to be very careful with all of the points so I wouldn't lose them.
And I wasn't too excited about that. So, I decided to see if I could make this block with just two seams. After playing for a little while with my favorite tool, the V Block tool, I developed a way to make this block (along with a block with a smaller center triangle) with only two seams! Boy was I excited!
I used this method to make Vendla's Play Date (you can buy it here) with the beautiful Exuberance collection shown below. Once you learn the technique, you can make this small quilt (42" x 53") super fast. Don't you think it looks cute with these lovely new fabrics that are available at your local quilt store right now? The quilt uses (17) 10" x 10" assorted precuts along with yardage for the background fabric. There is very little matching, and the quilt comes together really fast. It is a perfect pattern for making those last minute baby quilt gifts! The more times you make it, the faster it gets as you get the new, floating V Block technique down!
So, you may ask how long did it take me to make this quilt. What do you think? Give me a guess? Making the original quilt it took me just under two days (including quilting and binding it). This was my second time making it. And including the mistakes I made while cruising, and the resulting unstitching, I spend roughly a total of 14 hours, including quilting (with my longarm) and binding it from start to finish! Now you understand why I say this is a super FAST quilt to make!
Again, to buy Vendla's Play Date, click here. And get these wonderful fabrics now from your local quilt shop!
To get more eye candy and inspiration, make sure you visit all the participating blogs:
Deb Tucker started the Blog Hop on Sunday, followed by these designers:
- Monday, 3/27/23 Diana Man of Mugaboo Quilts
- Tuesday, 3/28/23 Tina Dillard of Quilting Affection Designs
- Wednesday, 3/29/23 Karen Overton The Quilt Rambler
- Thursday, 3/30/23 Phyllis Fay of Tucker University
- Friday, 3/31/23 Amy Costabile from Amy’s Quilt Room
- Saturday, 4/1/23 Raija Salomaa of Quilter’s Treasure Chest
By the way, who knew going for a photo shoot can be dangerous. It was a very windy day on Friday in Arkansas. In fact, there were tornadoes raging in the other parts of this state. Luckily, our part of the state was spared from tornadoes, but we had really strong winds. A friend of mine and I arrived to Tanyard Creek amid strong winds to take some photos of some of my quilts. As we set Vendla's Play Date quilt on the ground, we heard a very strange noise, and just around 10 yards from us we saw a tree shown on this pic fall down. It scared the heck out of me! Luckily we didn't get hurt, but it was a close call, a wayyy too close of a call! As we left and started walking towards out cars, we saw some big tree branches blocking the trail. Just half an hour earlier, as we had arrived, nothing was blocking the path....The moral of the story - you may think twice going in the middle of the trees on a windy day!
RSS Feed
