Sew Stylish with ByAnnie.com!

Welcome to October and a new Island Batik Ambassador challenge!

This month, the theme is “Sew Stylish” and Ambassadors were challenged to create a pattern from ByAnnie.com using Island Batik of Lumin Fabrics fabrics.

For my project, I chose “Sidekick” which is a saddlebag organizer that has lots of pockets for storage and is made for use with either a chair or a walker.

I thought this would be perfect for my Mom to use with her walker to carry various items. Big thanks to ByAnnie.com for providing all of the notions needed to make the Sidekick pattern: strapping, Soft & Stable, hook and loop tape, fold-over elastic, and more!

I was really pleased with the final result but there were times when I felt a bit overwhelmed by this project and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make it successfully. I’m not a bag maker. My previous bag experience was making a pouch project so this was a big step out of my comfort zone but that’s what challenges are all about, right?! 😉 Thanks to the excellent instructions in the ByAnnie.com pattern and the Add-on Videos for this pattern, I was able to persevere and I’m thrilled with the result.

Sidekick front

Sidekick back

One of the hardest decisions I had to make for Sidekick was the fabric. It required only three fabrics and I chose these from the new Everlasting collection by Jerry Khiev for Island Batik of Lumin Fabrics.

As I worked along, I had some help from one of my purry assistants, Salem. She made sure that I was on track and progressing well but she didn’t get to use part of Sidekick for a cat bed even though she tried to stake her claim! 🤣🐈‍⬛

When making Sidekick I used my Oliso M3 Pro Project iron. This small craft iron was perfect for getting into small areas to keep everything pressed well. I also used Schmetz needles when quilting and stitching the project. For stitching I used polyester thread for its strength and also because I had lots of different polyester thread colours which I needed as I frequently switched thread to match the various fabrics in this project.

Here are a few images of my progress in making Sidekick.

I learned a lot making this project: how to make two zippers from one zipper; how to attach fold-over elastic, how to work with mesh, and more. I know that I’ll be able to use these new skills when making future bag projects.

And, if I wasn’t sure that my Sidekick project was successful, I only had to ask Salem. I think she approves!

For more details on Sidekick and tips for working with this type of pattern, watch my video.

Thanks to Oliso, ByAnnie.com, Schmetz, and Island Batik of Lumin Fabrics 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. I’ll be adding the other Ambassador projects to my Pinterest board so be sure to check that out so you won’t miss out on their fabulous creations.

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

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 so you won’t miss out on what I’ll be creating next with Island Batik fabrics!

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

#islandbatik #islandbatikambassador #loveislandbatik #olisoconnects #createwitholiso #sewstylish #schmetzneedles #byannie #patternsbyannie #luminfabrics

Island Batik Ambassador Threaded Chaos Blog Hop for September 2025

Welcome to September and another Island Batik Ambassador blog hop! This month the theme was “Threaded Chaos” and Ambassadors were challenged to create a crazy quilt project using Aurifil thread. Thanks to Aurifil for sponsoring this blog hop!

Ambassadors received new fabric collections to use in this challenge. I used Geode Glow a Signature collection by Kathy Engle for Kari Nichols of Quilting Renditions of Island Batik of Lumin Fabrics for my crazy quilt project.

I just loved the gorgeous purples and warm golds in this new fabric collection.

As this blog hop was sponsored by Aurifil, we could choose thread in coordinating colours for our specific fabric collection. I chose shades of gold, yellow, dark blue, and purple for my quilt and used these to create the decorative stitches that I added to the pieced quilt blocks.

Okay, I didn’t really add them…my Janome 500E embroidery machine did. Yes, I machine embroidered all of the blocks in my quilt and was able to easily choose specific stitches and thread colours for all of the seams.

I also used the quilt as you go method, although I only stitched the top and batting together. I later added individual backings for each of the blocks with sashing in between all of them.

When making this quilt I used Schmetz needles as well as a cotton and wool batting from Hobbs Quilt Batting. Of course my Oliso M3 Pro Project iron helped in pressing all of my fabrics before I added them to the machine embroidered blocks.

And here’s Glowing Jewels!

Thanks to my hubby for playing quilt stand. 😉

With 20 different fabrics in Geode Glow, I decided to make 20 blocks so I could include each of the fabrics in the same place in each block. All of the blocks are the same however I rotated them when stitching them into the quilt top. I also used the same decorative stitches in each block but varied which Aurifil thread I used.

Can you find the 20 different fabrics in the individual blocks in Glowing Jewels? (Hint: they are all in the same piece as the dark blue fabric in the third row).

Glowing Jewels featuring Geode Glow fabric collection

While they look like a dark blue, the petunias are actually purple like some of the fabrics in Geode Glow.

One thing I added that wasn’t machine stitched in Glowing Jewels was my initials. Traditionally crazy quilts have additional embellishments and hand embroidery in them. While I considered hand stitching all of the decorative stitches (I love to do hand embroidery!), time didn’t permit so instead I simply used one of the Aurifil threads to embroider my initials “KJH” to one of the blocks.

Check out my video for more details on how I created Glowing Jewels here.

Be sure to check at your local quilt shop for Geode Glow.
Thanks to Hobbs Quilt Batting, Oliso, Aurifil, Schmetz Needles, and Island Batik of Lumin Fabrics 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 their blog posts to see what they’ve created for the Threaded Chaos Blog Hop.

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

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

#islandbatik #islandbatikambassador #loveislandbatik #hobbsbatting, #hobbsinside, #aurifil #aurifilthreads #olisoconnects #createwitholiso #threadedchaos #schmetzneedles #schmetz #luminfabrics

Island Batik Ambassador blog hop for May 2025

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.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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!

#islandbatik #islandbatikambassador #loveislandbatik #hobbsbatting, #hobbsinside, #aurifil #aurifilthreads #olisoconnects #createwitholiso #accuquilt #accuquiltgo #irishchainchallenge