October’s endangered animal awareness challenge…

The 2021 Aurifil Color Builders are a capsule of 12 mini-collections dedicated to an incredibly worthy cause that falls in line with Aurifil’s goal to increase sustainability and positive environmental impact — Endangered Species. Each collection contains three large spools of their supple and strong 40wt thread — a warm, a medium, and a dark.

For the October challenge, Aurifil asked the Island Batik Ambassadors to create a piece inspired by the endangered animal featured on their assigned Color Builder box.

I received the Sumatran Elephant…

The Sumatran elephant is native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra, and are one of the smallest of the Asian elephants, and known for their bright skin. Sadly there are are only between 2400 and 2800 Sumatran elephants left in the world, which puts them on the critically endangered list.

There has been a huge decline recently, largely due to habitat loss and illegal killing of the elephants for their ivory.

WWF Indonesia aims to protect the sustainability of the Sumatran elephants through collaborations with the government and other organizations. They have established elephant patrols, that serves to prevent hunting and dismantling of traps that can endanger the elephants.

Auriful thread have drawn their color inspiration from 12 magnificent animals, currently in dire need of attention, advocacy, and compassion. They are dedicated to highlighting their stories, helping to educate on their struggles, and working to create valuable change via awareness and fundraising. To help achieve these goals, Aurifil are collaborating with Earth League International and are looking forward to a strong and effective partnership, to read more about their work, head to

https://www.aurifil.com/2021-color-builders

I’ve created a wall hanging, using some gorgeous Island Batik fabrics, and the 3 Aurifil threads from my pack

I love the effect of the Island Batik blue fabrics

The light thread added a lovely shimmer to my project

Using the other two thread colours, I added some thread painting details to add depth and shading

Be sure to check out all the other Ambassadors projects, by heading over to the Island Batik Page

This wall hanging was quilted with Hobbs cotton batting and I added some hanging hoops to complete my project

I’ve really enjoyed reading about these elephants along with all the other Ambassadors projects, I hope you have too.

Michelle x

Never too early challenge…

No one typically thinks of winter in the summertime but it’s the best time of all to get an early start on Christmas and holiday projects…

I love a Christmas table, filled with sparkle, so I decided to make some Christmas bauble placemats, using some gorgeous Christmas fabrics including Holly berries and Snowflake

Cute Christmas baubles you can personalize

These placemats are a perfect size for you dinner plate, and can be personalised for that extra special touch at Christmas.

I’ve used some vibrant Auriful thread, the green is 1114 and the purple is 2545 to add the wording details

Each place-mat has Vliseline Thermolam wadding inside, to give it some stability and form, with hand sewn binding, using Aurifil thread and Clover sharps black gold needles.

All finished off with a sparkly silver ribbon and bow, all I need now is the crackers and the Yorkshire puddings

Have you started thinking about Christmas yet?

Michelle x

spreading love and joy with my summer vibes lap quilt…

Welcome to June’s Island batik challenge, this month is all about using our Accuquilt ultimate cutting machine, and combining the 8” or 12” finished BOB dies, with the GO! Qube 8″ Mix & Match Block and create a whole new pattern by combining the two.

I decided to combine the Hattie Choice block with the Go! zero pattern block to make a 31″ square lap quilt. I’ve used some super bright orange and yellows from my stash buster collection, along with some gorgeous Marbles from the basics range and Almond from the neutrals collection

I wanted this lap quilt to give off some summer vibes

I used Hobbs cotton batting inside, along with a super bright yellow Auriful thread to quilt this blanket.

I added a really bright orange binding, to make this summer vibe quilt pop

I couldn’t resist taking this quilt on a little photo shoot around my garden in the beautiful sunshine…

Head over to Island Batik Facebook page to see all the other amazing quilts that have been designed by the other Ambassadors

Enjoy the beautiful sunshine, and spread some love and joy today

Michelle x

welcome to my Island batik Blog Hop day…

This month the Island Batik Ambassadors are show casing lots of new fabric collections, so be sure to check them all out. Head over to www.instagram.com/island_batik, to see the stunning quilts that have been created so far this month.

I got to play with a super gorgeous new collection called ‘Plum Pudding’its been designed by Kathy Engle for Island Batik, they are such beautiful modern colours and prints which are available to purchase in shops from May.

Plum Pudding Collection

I have created a 50″ x 50″ modern quilt, using these stunning fabrics, Aurifil thread and Hobbs batting.

Here are a few little sneaky peeks of the quilt, arent the colours just beautiful?

This quilt is made up of 16 blocks, but its when you bring the blocks together, is when the magic appears, I really love the fun, super charged pin wheels in this pattern.

This quilt is also one the first quilts to have one of my new labels sewn on…

As you know an Island Batik blog hop doesn’t come without an amazing giveaway, and this week they are giving you the chance to win a 2.5″ Strip Pack and 10″ Stack of the Island Batik Glacier Bay collection by Kathy Engle! Two winners will be chosen for this giveaway, so don’t delay, enter now!

Click Here To Enter

Enter here

Thank you to @aurifilthread, @hobbsbatting, @schmetzneedles, and @accuquilt for sponsoring this giveaway and Island Batik!

This giveaway ends on May 14th at 11:59 pm PDT. Two random winners will be notified by email on May 15th and announced on our Facebook page on May, 18th. If the winners do not respond within the first three days after being notified, two new random winners will be chosen.

This pattern is available to purchase from here on my blog, and is also available to purchase via my Etsy store www.etsy.com/uk/shop/creativeblondegifts along with lots of other Island Batik patterns.

Plum Pudding Quilt Pattern PDF

A stunning 50″ x 50″ quilt pattern, designed using the new ‘Plum Pudding’ collection from Island Batik. This quilt is bursting with purples and creams and has an amazing super charged pinwheel design.

£7.20

Thanks for stopping by, good luck, I hope you win the gorgeous fabrics

Michelle x

Artsy Fartsy…

Welcome to the Island batik July challenge , the fabric and threads used in this project were given to me as part of the Island Batik Ambassador program 2019

Artsy Fartsy using three different Aurifil thread weights.

I’ve used thread weights 28,12 and floss.

The larger the number, the finer the thread.

I’ve used the Aurifil floss to hand embroider the letters in the center, 12 weight cotton thread for bold decorative machine stitches, and the 28 weight threads was used to machine applique my fabrics in place, using free motion embroidery

I had such fun fussy cutting lots of bright and bold flowers, butterflies and dragonflies from my gorgeous Island batik fabrics, which i fused to Vlieseline Bondaweb.

After I fused all my gorgeous fabrics into a 10″ circle, and used free motion quilting and thread weight 28 (slightly thicker then my everyday thread, I wanted it to be a little bolder) to secure my applique.

Before starting this project I fused the 16″ square piece of main fabric to Vlieseline Interfacing, this gave it extra strength, so I was ready to hand embroider the letters using floss and a darning needle. I chose a simple back stitch. I love the reverse of this piece too

To finish this piece, I used thread weight 12 (make sure you change your bobbin thread to match your top thread weight). I wanted to create a strong bold decorative stitch that would stand out

I framed my finished piece in a 12″ embroidery hoop. I’ve never made ‘Artsy Fartsy’ before, but I’ve had such fun – love a good challenge!

Thanks for reading, be sure to head over to the Island Batik Facebook page to see what the other ambassadors are making this month, and throughout the year…

Follow me here on my blog, and you can also find me on Instagram and Facebook

‘Do what makes your heart smile’

Happy Sewing

Michelle

Try It…

June is ‘Try It’ challenge as part of the Island Batik Ambassador Program, I had a few ideas in mind, but finally decided on ‘Stained Glass Applique’…

If I were to make another, I would make the applique pieces bigger and far less fiddly, but we live and learn.

Have you ever tried ‘Stained Glass Applique’?

With my fabric chosen, and the layout sorted, it was time to start sewing the blocks together, I then went on to adding the strips of bias binding along each edge

I was pleased with the look this gave me, when I hung it up to the window

Now this is where it got complicated… I fused my hearts in place, and trimmed my bias binding so it measured 1/4″ when sewn in place.

So many pins!!!!

The idea is to make sure you have no raw edges showing, so you have to plan your bias binding journey around the applique pieces. I also wanted to make my hearts look interlinked, which made this process even more complicated…

Finally all the hand sewing was done!

I quilted around each coloured block, and added a brown border to frame it

And my Stained Glass window was complete…

Thanks for reading, be sure to head over to the Island Batik Facebook page to see what the other ambassadors are making this month, and throughout the year…

Follow me here on my blog, and you can also find me on Instagram and Facebook

‘Do what makes your heart smile’

Happy Sewing

Michelle

I’ve let the cat out the bag…

This week I’ve been fortunate enough to try out a few little notions that I’m super excited to share with you, they could make your sewing a little sweeter…

Gutermann have brought out some new hand quilting threads, they come in a pack of 10 spools each containing 80m mercerized cotton. No tangles when sewing, and super strength you can rely on when pulling your stitches tight – so no thread can be seen

Watch my video here…

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Next up… Clover have these really cool ‘fork pins’ which allow you to pin your nested seams.

Do you ever get frustrated with seams that don’t match up?

These are so fine, you can sew right over the top of them – great way to get accurate seam matching

Watch my videos, to see my results…

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The Results…

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Thanks for watching!

Follow me here on my blog, you can also find me on Instagram and Facebook

‘Do what makes your heart smile’

Happy Sewing

Michelle