Celebrations! – an Island Batik Challenge

‘Twas the Night before Christmas and not a stocking was hung. Threads everywhere and yet it still feels like not is much done. This has been my year. Energy management has a lot of tweaking to be done, particularly putting in a lot more buffer time to allow for the underestimation of how long it actually takes to do something (like creating blog posts 🤪).

When thinking of this challenge, I had thought I’d make some fabric Christmas crackers. Yes, well, good intentions and all that go along with it, fabric Christmas crackers will be on next year’s list. However, I did manage to make a couple of celebration-related projects. We are celebrating Christmas back over in Switzerland with my boys and friends. We’re staying with a former neighbour near Geneva so we get to enjoy my former view from the garden for a few days as well. No snow in the forecast but we still love the view of Mont Blanc.

 

As we packed for nearly 3 weeks away, I realised I had very little space for much extra. Ski gear takes up a lot of room! I still wanted to bring something festive for our celebrations so I grabbed a cute wallhanging I made using some Island Batiks.

 

The blue background fabric is one that I received as a 2 yard cut with my first Island Batik shipment. It’s from the Brilliant Blue collection, called Marine. I love it so much that I’ve bought an extra 5 yards. The red was from the Island Batik Blenders, called Wavy Dots in Cherry. I pieced it using Aurifil No. 2610 (Light Blue Grey), which blended very nicely. It’s still a flimsy but with limited suitcase space, that was just as well. 

As our travel plans were solidifying, the stars aligned so that I’d get to see my eldest son (who lives near Zurich) & his girlfriend (who lives in Paris). This meant I could whip up a cute little accent for her, to go with an eco bag. I used a few blenders and the wheat design was from the first project I did in 2023, the Puff Quilt. Again, pieced with a variety of Aurifil threads, the Schmetz micro-tek needles worked like a charm even with the thick layers after folding.

 

 

This was also my first chance to use the nesting travel cases I made from the By Annie pattern last month. I love them! They were worth the effort. I’ve been asked if I’d make them for sale but I’m not sure anyone would want to pay what I’d charge. 😄

As always, a big thank you goes to Island Batik for providing all of these gorgeous fabrics, along with their industry partners, Aurifil, and Schmetz for providing great tools to work with.

 

Be sure to check out all of the other Ambassadors who will have some amazing projects this month.

 

Happy Quilting!