Christmas in July- Island Batik and Accuquilt Challenge

The July Island Batik Brand Ambassador challenge is "Christmas in July" and is sponsored by Accuquilt. We were to use the new Tree of Life cutting die to make a project and share the Christmas spirit and spread JOY by giving it to someone. Here's my completed quilt hanging in my Mom's sewing room.

And here's my Mom, Georgia with her new quilt and being supervised by Oliver (Ollie Owl pattern from Funky Friends Factory -April 2022 IB Challenge). She's given me so much that it was fun to give her a special quilt.

Mom loves sunflowers so I was happy to find this beautiful sunflower batik  in my IB stash builder strips - 5" by 42" wof - double the width of jelly roll strips and a great size for piecing. And even better, I found a second lighter yellow sunflower strip for the opposite basket!

Did I mention she loves sunflowers? It was easy to find sunflowers to stage the quilt. Here are two of my myriad choices.

Here's the Accuquilt Tree of Life die and a bit of my cutting. Clearly, lots of triangles will be involved in creating this quilt. This is a BOB die - Block on Board meaning that you can cut out all the pieces needed for a block with just one pass of the die through your Accuquilt Go! machine! NO pesky Y seams and the notched corners (no dog ears) make piecing easy.

So many options with this interesting new die. Would I be making the Tree like shown on the die above or little trees like below?  Or Bowties or Baskets? OR??? Ps. sneak peek at the alpaca and wool pressing mat from our new IB Ambassador sponsor Prairie Spirit Alpacas from Canada.

I decided to make several different baskets. And then had to figure how to arrange them - it was surprising how many different ways 4 blocks could be combined. This was my first choice:

 

After several tries, here's my final arrangement and the completed quilt. I machine quilted in horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines creating an X in each of the 100 little squares (1.75") for 400 quilted triangles. That seemed appropriate given all the triangles in the Tree of Life pattern. I used a facing technique (sewing strips to front and turning them and seam allowance to the back) for a seamless edge finish. 

Baskets of Love and Sunflowers for Mom

17" x  17"

Original Design

Sandra Starley

July 2022

Fabrics: Woodcut Blossoms and various other Island Batik fabrics 

Backing: Island Batik Heavenly (Brilliant Blue Collection)

Batting: Hobbs Premium 80/20 Bleached Cotton Batting and 

Piecing Thread: Aurifil #50 weight

Quilting Thread: Aurifil #50 weight

75/11 Chrome Needle: Schmetz Quilting Needles 

Pressing Mat: Prairie Spirit Alpacas

Tree of Life BOB die: Accuquilt

Pieced and quilted by Sandra Starley 

***Fabrics provided by Island Batik, batting by Hobbs, thread by Aurifil, needles by Schmetz, die by Accuquilt, and pressing mat by Prairie Spirit Alpacas. ***

To see more amazing Triangle Quilts, visit my fellow 2022 Island Batik Brand Ambassadors:

Brenda Alburl ~ Songbird Designs
Megan Best ~ Bestquilter
Pamela Boatright ~ Pamelaquilts
Elizabeth DeCroos ~ Epida Studio
Jennifer Fulton ~ Inquiring Quilter

Preeti Harris ~ Sew Preeti Quilts
Mania Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for quilts
Jane Hauprich ~ Stitch By Stitch Custom Quilting
Reed Johnson ~ Blue Bear Quilts
Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs

Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood
Denise Looney ~ For The Love Of Geese
Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights
Maryellen McAuliffe ~ Mary Mack Made Mine
Anorina Morris – sameliasmum.com

Lisa Pickering ~ Lisa’s Quilting Passion
Claudia Porter ~ Create with Claudia
Gail Renna ~ Quilt Haven Threads
Brianna Roberts ~ Sew Cute And Quirky
Michelle Roberts ~ Creative Blonde

Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail
Andi Stanfield ~ True Blue Quilts
Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations
Suzy Webster ~ Websterquilt