Welcome to Week 2 of the Irish Chain blog hop and my chance to share what I’ve created using Island Batik fabrics!
This month, the Island Batik Ambassador challenge was to create a project using the traditional Irish Chain block. This blog hop was sponsored by AccuQuilt, who sent each Ambassador their AccuQuilt GO! Irish Chain BOB die to help with the design. This made for very accurate - and fast - cutting and I loved that the corners are cropped to make it easy to match block pieces and stitch them together.
The best part of this challenge was deciding on how to use the colourful fabrics in the new Splish Splash fabric collection by Heidi Pridemore of The Whimsical Workshop. This collection by Island Batik for Lumin Fabrics is full of starfish, seaweed, and seahorses and I loved the bright colours in this collection. I paired these fabrics with Eggshell, one of the neutral foundation fabrics from Island Batik.
I designed my Irish Jewels quilt in EQ8 and then had to decide where to put the various fabrics in the Splish Splash collection. Of the 20 fabrics in the collection, I managed to use 19 in my quilt - one of them being part of the pieced backing.
I determined where to place the various fabrics on the shapes on the AccuQuilt Irish Chain die and then cut them which took very little time. The advantage of using an AccuQuilt GO! cutter and die!
I then laid them out in shape piles so I could easily choose the correct shape and fabric to create each block in Irish Jewels.
I found my design boards very helpful for piecing this project. I laid out each block on a design board to ensure that I had all of the correct fabrics and shapes for that block and could then carry the board to the sewing machine to piece the block together. I could’ve chain pieced the quilt but with so many different fabrics, I thought my chances of piecing them incorrectly and having to pull out the seam ripper was too high so did each block individually.
I used Aurifil thread and a Schmetz needle to piece each block, then laid them out in rows before stitching each row together. To ensure that the rows could then be accurately pieced together, I pressed the seams in each row in opposite directions using my Oliso Pro3 project iron.
Once the rows were all stitched together, I added the two borders and cornerstones. I then sandwiched the quilt using a cotton/wool blend batting from Hobbs Batting.
The next part is always the most challenging and most fun for me: quilting! I love to combine various types of quilting such as walking foot, decorative stitching, and free motion quilting as I did in this project.
I stitched in the ditch with a walking foot between the borders and then used a serpentine decorative stitch in some of the areas and free motion quilted a floral design, swirls, and l’s and e’s in the blocks. I left the small first border blank as a break between the blocks and the wider border. I quilted l’s and e’s in the second border and repeated the flower swirl in the large cornerstone and a swirl in the smaller ones.
I love how the quilting turned out and I think that the serpentine stitch looks like waves which are perfect for the Splish Splash fabrics.
Here’s the finished Irish Jewels quilt!
And the pieced backing - very little piecing 😉:
During this week, there will be a chance to win one of 2 fabric bundles - either Splish Splash or Jabberwocky from Island Batik of Lumin Fabrics so be sure to enter your information below for your chance to win.
Thanks to @Hobbs Quilt Batting, @Oliso, @aurifilthreads, @Accuquilt, and Island Batik for @luminfabrics for the items that they sent me that allowed me to create this month’s project.
There will be many more projects coming from the other Island Batik Ambassadors this month so be sure to check out my Facebook page to see their projects.
You can find out more about the 2025 Island Batik Ambassadors and the projects that they will be working on this year on their websites below.
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
Susan Michaels - Dragonfly Fibertart Pattern Company
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
Be sure you’re following me on Facebook and Instagram so you won’t miss out on what I’ll be creating next with Island Batik fabrics!
Note: I may use affiliate links in my blog posts: it doesn’t cost you anything more when you use these codes but I receive a small amount of compensation when you do. The products featured in this blogpost were given to me by Island Batik and their sponsors. Thank you!
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