Island Batik Ambassador Challenge for November 2025

Quilting

Nov 20

Welcome to week 3, the final week, of the Timeless Traditions blog hop from Island Batik.

This month the challenge was to use at least 5 traditional quilt blocks to create a lap or larger size quilt using a new fabric collection from Island Batik of Lumin Fabrics. I was given the new Summer 2025 Under the Sea fabric collection by Jerry Khiev for Swan Sheridan of Swan Amity Studios for my project and I love the rich colours in this beautiful collection.

For my Starburst quilt I chose to use the following blocks: Nine Patch Chain, Flying Geese, Friendship Star, Variable Star, Four Patch, and Half Square Triangles. Although these are all easy to make traditional quilt blocks, there were some that I had never made before so this was the perfect opportunity to learn a new block.

I played with the above blocks in EQ8 and came up with the following design which used all 20 of the fabrics in the Under the Sea fabric collection.

While this was my final design decision, it wasn’t my original concept…I made a few changes mostly due to the fact that I hadn’t respected the fact that you can’t drop just any block into any size space. For example, it doesn’t work very well to put a 3 unit block into a 8” space in your quilt - the cutting math doesn’t work out very well (ask me how I know!).

After a bit of a hiccup with that issue, I changed up my design a bit and everything went smoothly after that.
Because there was a lot of cutting and stitching to create each of the blocks (isn’t there always?!), I found it helpful to create a table of the various fabrics in each block. This included all of the fabrics in the Under the Sea collection (20 fabrics in total for the entire quilt!), the number of pieces to be cut from each fabric, and cutting dimensions.

For example, if I need 20 - 3 ½” x 3 1/2” squares of a certain fabric, this means that I’ll need to cut 2 strips of fabric 3 ½” x WOF and then sub-cut into 20 - 3 ½” x 3 1/2” squares. Once I’ve created this table, I like to print it out so I can check off each piece as I cut it. This ensures that I don’t miss any and have everything ready to start stitching the blocks together. It’s also helpful if I want to replicate the quilt again in the future.

Once all of the fabric had been cut, I labelled each one with the block name and piece so I could start stitching the blocks together.

As there were several Flying Geese blocks in the quilt and also used to make the Variable Star block, I used the 4-in-1 method to create them. I like to make these a bit bigger and trim them down with the Studio 180 Design Wing Clipper tool - very helpful and makes for very nice results.

And, of course, I had help from my purry assistants while making this project. Here’s Victor modelling the finished Variable Star block 🤣.

Once all of the blocks were stitched together, I placed them on my design wall and started constructing the quilt top. It all went together easily (thankfully!).

And here’s the final result.

Notice that I haven’t quilted this project…yet! I’ve had a few family issues to deal with and some unanticipated travel so I haven’t yet quilted Starburst as I want to be able to do it justice - and rushing the quilting part never ends well. I have lots of ideas and will be quilting it in the future with some ruler work and free motion quilting.

As this is the last week of the Timeless Traditions blog hop, it’s also your last chance to win one of two fat quarter bundles of either Paisley Pop or Under the Sea (yes, the fabrics I used to make my Starburst quilt!).

To enter to win, enter a comment on this Lumin Fabrics Facebook post or on their Instagram post.

NOTE: You must leave the comment on these posts only to be eligible to win - don’t leave a comment on my blog post.

Be sure to check with your local quilt shop to get the latest Island Batik of Lumin Fabrics fabrics.

Thanks to Hobbs Quilt Batting, Oliso, Aurifil, Studio 180 Design, Schmetz Needles, and Island Batik of Lumin Fabrics for the items that they sent me that allowed me to create this month’s project.

If you’ve missed any of the projects from other Island Batik Ambassadors for the Timeless Traditions blog hop, you can find them at the following websites.

Brenda Alburl ~ Songbird Designs

Renee Atkinson ~ Pink Tulip Quilting

Susan Deshensky ~ Lady Blue Quilts Studio

Tina Dillard - Quilting Affection Designs

Brittany Fisher ~ Bobbin with Brittany

Kimberly Flannagan - Kimberlys Quilts

Preeti Harris ~ Sew Preeti Quilts

Mania Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for quilts

Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs

Connie Kresin Campbell ~ Freemotion by the River

Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood

Denise Looney ~ A Quiltery