The Island Batik Ambassador Challenge for June 2023 is Fly Away. The challenge was to use one of the pre-cut bundles that we received in our December boxes to make a quilt or table runner using Flying Geese blocks. Challenge on! But which pre-cuts to use? I chose two: Glorious Greens (and glorious they are) and Exuberance (a Deb Tucker Studio 180 Design). Glorious Greens are from the Island Batik Basics Foundations and were designed by Jerry Khiev and Kathy Engle. The batiks are so vibrant and work so well together! I also used black, gray and white by Island batik.
Next, I went to my Electric Quilt 8 and I played around and around and around until I finally knew the design I wanted to use. I looked at all of the geese blocks and I even designed some of my own. I imported the images of Exuberance and Glorious Greens into EQ8. I decided on 10" blocks and 1-1/2" sashing. My finished quilt size was 67-1/2" x 67-1/2". I paper pieced each block, because I was working with 10" fabric squares and 10" blocks. I measured my shapes or templates and then I cut enough fabric pieces, so that I could paper piece my blocks. Some quilters do not like paper piecing, but it is second nature to me and my go-to-technique. I love paper piecing!
What are the paper piecing steps?
Fold on the solid line.
Trim
Add new fabric
Sew on solid line
Iron
Repeat
Some additional tips:
* Always sew and fold on the printed side up, because you want to sew and fold on the solid lines.
* For section #1, the piece of fabric is lightly glued wrong side to the back of the paper unit.
* For all other sections, put the right sides of fabric together.
* Shorten your needle stitch length to 1.7-1.8
* Make sure each fabric piece extends beyond the final trimming line of the block.
I must give credit to Judy Niemeyer for the paper piecing steps listed above. I used my go to gray 50 weight Aurifil thread. I also used 70/10 Microtex needles by Schmetz. That is normally the thread color that I stitch with and the needles that I use.
I trimmed my blocks and then removed the paper. You want to remove the paper, before sewing the blocks together. You want an accurate 1/4" seam allowance; besides who really wants to pick paper out of seams? There is one exception when you would leave the paper on and you never want to sew through more than three layers: two fabric and one paper. If you are doing curved piecing, you would remove the paper from the floppy or curved piece (smile) and leave the paper on the other unit (frown).
My blocks are done! I love my design wall.
Off for long arming. Thank you, Janice Roy for long arming my quilt! If you would like information for Janice, go to my website and look under "longarmer information."
Did I tell you that I really love this quilt? I love the bright colors! My friend, Vicki Pede came up with the name - "Geese Flying in the Breeze".
You can get your very own Glorious Greens from Creekside Quilts, jellyrollfabric.net, and Yoder Department Store. Love Exuberance? You can get these beautiful fabrics from here: Yankee Quilter and Colchester Mills Fabrics.
