Island Batik Ambassador Challenge for December 2025 - It’s All Up to You!

Welcome to December and the final project that I’ve created as an Island Batik Ambassador. Our theme this month was “It’s All Up to You” so the possibilities were (almost) endless!

This was the perfect opportunity to dive into some of the previous fabric collections that I received from Island Batik of Lumin Fabrics this year and to also use some of their foundation fabrics.

I had previously received a Strip Pack of Precious Pink and thought that this would be the perfect fabric for the project that I designed for December: a retro pink Christmas tree!

Full disclosure: I designed this project for members of The Quilter’s Way, (although pink wasn’t in my plans for them!) the online membership that I host, but knew that it would be a great project for the Island Batik Ambassador challenge this month too.

Here’s my initial design that I created in EQ8

I initially incorporated fabrics from the Under the Sea fabric collection, a Signature Collection by Jerry Khiev for Swan Sheridan of Swan Amity Studios, for the background but decided that it was a bit too busy so I substituted one of Island Batik’s Blender fabrics for the background instead.

I did keep the Under the Sea fabric for the first border. I also included 4 fabrics from various Island Batik collections in the second border (although you don’t see them in the above image).

Once I’d finalized the design it was time to start making the blocks!

The tree is composed of strip pieced blocks and strip pieced half square triangle blocks. They’re easy to make and I only used half of the Precious Pinks Strip Pack to make it - leaving more beautiful pink fabrics for another project. 😉

I next had to cut up blocks for the background and the tree trunk and I also needed to create the star appliqué - also from a previous Island Batik fabric collection. I also had to cut squares for the second border and stitch them together as well as make the half square triangle cornerstones for this border.

Once the blocks were cut, I stitched them together into rows, added the star appliqué at the top of the tree and then stitched the borders to the centre of the quilt top. I used Aurifil thread for the piecing and for finishing the edges of the star appliqué.

My Oliso M3 Pro Project iron was very helpful for pressing all of the seams.

The top was now done…well, almost!

I decided to add faux trapunto to the tree, the tree trunk, and the star. This meant cutting out batting slightly larger than all these areas and I used Hobbs Poly-Down batting for this as I wanted to create additional “puffiness” with the faux trapunto. This batting was stitched to the back of these areas on the quilt top and then trimmed.

Once this was done, it was time to layer the top, batting, and backing so it could be quilted. I used Hobbs 80/20 cotton polyester batting for this step.
I used several different quilting motifs on this project: large wishbone for the tree, loops in the star and woodgrain in the tree trunk and then wavy lines in the first border and ls and es in the second one. Here are some detail images of the various quilting motifs.

I wanted to use a smaller scale motif in the background to compress it and used Es (upper case cursive Es) and 3s in this area.

Here is Bubblegum Christmas, my own retro pink Christmas tree!

Thanks to Hobbs Quilt Batting, Oliso, Aurifil, and Island Batik for Lumin Fabrics for the items that they sent me that allowed me to create Bubblegum Christmas.

There will be more projects coming from the other Island Batik Ambassadors this month and I’m looking forward to seeing their creations.

Be sure to check out the other Island Batik Ambassadors’ websites for their December challenge projects.

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

Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights

Lisa Pickering ~ Lisa’s Quilting Passion

Sarah Pitcher ~ Pitcher’s Boutique

Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail

Carol Stanek ~ Stitch with Color

Solomae Stoycoff - Cuddle Cat Quiltworks

Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations

Suzy Webster ~ Websterquilt

Note: The products featured in this blogpost were given to me by Island Batik and their sponsors. Thank you!

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