Island Batik Funky Friends Factory Ambassador Challenge for June 2025

It’s June and time for another Island Batik Ambassador project!

This is a super fun challenge as Ambassadors got to choose any pattern from Funky Friends Factory and choose any Island Batik fabrics to make the stuffy!

I chose Nate the Narwhal and choose a variety of Island Batik fabrics from their Playful Posies and Blenders collections to create my version, which I call “Nellie the Narwhal”.

I love working with Funky Friends Factory patterns: they’re so easy to understand and many, including this one, have step-by-step photo tutorials (the link is in the pattern) so it’s super simple to stitch up one of their cute designs. There are even check boxes so you can check off each step as you construct your project.

I wanted to add a bit more fabric to Nellie, so I pieced three different Island Batik fabrics together for the Tummy and Chest pieces.

I also printed out the various templates and glued them to freezer paper. I could then press them to the appropriate fabrics and cut them out. I then removed the freezer paper and, if I want to make another Nate or Nellie in the future, I can use these templates again.

Of course I used my Oliso M3Pro iron to press the templates to the various fabrics.

When making the flippers for Nellie, there is some top stitching required. This is also true of the tail pieces. I used a contrasting Aurifil thread in a classic pink colour for this top stitching and loved the extra embellishment this gave Nellie.

There are instructions on the Funky Friends Factory website about inserting craft eyes when making their designs but I decided to use buttons for Nellie’s eyes since I have just a few (thousand) of these. I used my Janome CM17 to machine sew the blue buttons onto Nellie and then glued small black buttons in the centre of the blue buttons. I really like the result!

During the construction process, I was a bit concerned that I was making a manta ray and not a narwhal but with a bit more stitching, I could see Nellie taking shape. 😉

When Nellie was all stitch up, she looked a bit flat but that was soon resolved once she was stuffed.

I used Hobbs Bonded Fibers Simply Stuffing to firmly stuff my narwhal. I’ve used various brands of stuffing in other projects and I’ve got to say that I really loved the softness of this brand. It was very enjoyable to work with and I was able to stuff Nellie smoothly without any lumps or bumps.

Here’s Nellie the Narwhal in her natural habitat. She’ll be joining Mackenzie the Moose (click here for details on how I created him) in my studio.

Thanks to @Hobbs Quilt Batting, @Oliso, @aurifilthreads, @funkyfriendsfactory and Island Batik of @luminfabrics for the items that they sent me that allowed me to create this month’s project.

There will be other Funky Friends Factory projects coming from the other Island Batik Ambassadors this month so be sure to check out their blogposts for all the fun 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

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: 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 #funkyfriendsfactory #janome

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.

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

Island Batik Drunkard’s Path Ambassador Challenge for April 2025

Welcome to April and another challenge for Island Batik Ambassadors - like me! 😉

Thanks to @Hobbs Quilt Batting, @Oliso, @aurifilthreads and Island Batik for @luminfabrics for the items that they sent me that allowed me to create this month’s project.

The challenge this month was to make a project using a traditional quilt block - the Drunkard’s Path - in an untraditional way and I was up for this challenge!

I used my Modern Curves design that I had previously created for my online membership, The Quilter’s Way. This design is square and finishes at 45”.

I used an Island Batik Stack (10” squares) from the Flutter Wings fabric collection by Kathy Engle as well as black fabric from the solids collection.

I was able to use the fabric from the Stack not only in the blocks but also in one of the borders and in the pieced binding. And I still have at least half of the Stack left for a future project. I loved the bright, summery fabrics in the Flutter Wings collection and really loved how they popped off the black background.

I used an acrylic template to cut my fabrics for 6” finished blocks and then had to do the dreaded curved piecing. I’ve tried to do this many different ways and I get the best results when I just stitch slowly with a ¼” foot and use a stiletto to feed my two fabrics under the needle. My Oliso M3 Pro Project iron worked perfectly for pressing these small curved pieces in each block.

Once the blocks were made, I had to decide how I wanted to position them for the quilt top. Thank goodness for my portable design wall! I played with different arrangements and finally decided on one that I liked. Taking photos of the various combinations really helped in making this decision!

Now that I had decided on the block arrangements, it was time to stitch them together into rows and then rows into a quilt top. I also stitched together strips to make the first border and then attached it and the second border from the black fabric.
Once I had the top completed, it was time to decide on how to quilt Modern Curves. I use Procreate (an iPad app) to sketch out my ideas for quilt motifs and I did that for this project as well but then deviated from it quite a bit. Inspiration often hits when I’m doing the quilting.

I next had to choose what colour thread to use for the quilting. I like to use one thread for the entire quilting process if I can but it’s tough to choose a thread that works for both black and bright fabrics. After much thread playing and thinking, I decided to use a dark grey thread. I sandwiched my quilt top with Hobbs 100% cotton batting and used the black solid Island Batik fabric with a bit of the Flutter Wings fabric to create the pieced backing.

Here is the final result:

And a bit of the back …

There have already been many amazing Drunkard’s Path projects shared by my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors this month and there are still more to come!

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: 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 #drunkardspathchallenge

It’s All Up to You Island Batik Ambassador Challenge for March 2025

Welcome to March and another project that I’ve created using Island Batik fabrics. This month Island Batik Ambassadors were given free rein to create any project they wanted to using Island Batik of Lumin Fabrics fabrics. I chose a precut Stack called Bubbles, Curves and Corners to create this wall hanging that I made using the Modern Spools pattern from A Piece of Cake by Peta Peace.

Bubbles, Corners and Curves Stack (10” squares)

I’ve always wanted to make this project and the It’s All Up to You challenge gave me that opportunity.

In addition to the precut Stack, I also used some of Island Batik’s solids in white and dark grey.

This was an easy quilt to construct and really shows off the fun fabrics in the Bubbles, Curves and Corners fabric collection. I especially liked the one off-kilter spool that was in this pattern - fun!

My Oliso Pro 3 iron was very helpful in pressing everything nice and flat when stitching the project together.

Perhaps the most difficult part of the project was deciding where to place the spool blocks and I tried to ensure that there was contrast in the fabrics next to one another.

This project also gave me lots of opportunity to do some fun quilting - my favourite part! I used some cursive “l’s and e’s” in the sashing, small wishbones in the spool backgrounds, and some back and forth lines in the spools. I used one of my favourite motifs, “E’s and 3”s” in the area surrounding the off-kilter spool in the bottom right of the quilt.

I used Schmetz needles to do the quilting in this project.

When it came time to sandwich the quilt, I used some Hobbs 80/20 cotton/polyester batting to give some dimension in the quilting.

Rather than using a binding in a different colour than the background fabric, I used the same background fabric to avoid “framing” the project.

I was pleased at how this project turned out and even have fabrics left from the precut Stack that will be perfect for a future project.

You can see more details on this project, specifically on how I quilted it in my video below.

Thanks to @Hobbs Quilt Batting, @Oliso, @schmetzneedles 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 and 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

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: 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 #itsalluptoyou

Island Batik Ambassador Challenge - Runner Up Blog Hop!

Welcome to week 1 of the Island Batik Ambassador Runner Up blog hop! Our challenge for February 2025 is to create a table or bed runner using a new fabric collection.

I received the Botanical Dreams fabric collection by Jerry Khiev (thanks to Island Batik!) and loved working with this bright and luscious collection! Look at all those gorgeous oranges, purples and yellows - it reminds me of sunshine and tropical places! This fabric collection starts shipping to your local quilt shop this month.

Botanical Dreams by Jerry Khiev for Island Batik

There was one other requirement for this month’s challenge and that was to use a Studio 180 Design tool to create our project. I received the Corner Pop tool from Studio 180 Design and this tool makes accurate stitch and flip blocks. Thanks to Studio 180 Design for sending me this tool to use for my first 2025 project an an Island Batik Ambassador.

Corner Pop tool from Studio 180 Design

Once I had the fabric and the tool, it was time to use my brain to come up with a design. This is the most challenging but also most rewarding part of any challenge! I often look to EQ8 to design my quilts and it was a help to make this design too.

EQ8 Mock up

I decided to create 6” blocks made with 9 stitch and flip units in each of them and put 12 of these blocks together into the table runner. There was a lot of cutting required for each unit and I made sure to label the fabrics so I wouldn’t get them confused as I started to use the Corner Pop tool.

Fabrics cut, labelled and ready for the next step!

Once everything was organized, it was time to start cutting into the background square with the Corner Pop tool.

Getting ready to cut the background square for one unit.

Once the background squares were prepared (corners cut), it was time to stitch on the replacement triangles. These are oversized and would be trimmed down in the final step.

Of course it’s always helpful to have the quilt inspector in my studio as I create my Island Batik Ambassador projects. 🐈‍⬛ What actually is helpful is using my Oliso M3Pro iron to get a good press on all of these little units before they’re stitched into the final quilt top.

Units with replacement triangles stitched on and ready to be pressed - after they pass inspection 🧐

Once all of the units were nicely pressed (thanks, Oliso!), it was time to trim them with the Corner Pop tool.

Block units trimmed and ready for block construction

Here’s what one of the blocks looks like.

Block units ready for stitching

I made all 12 of the blocks and stitched them together into 2 rows and then stitched the 2 rows together to create the center of the table runner.

12 blocks stitched together to form the table runner center.

Next it was time to add the two borders with cornerstones. Here’s the final table runner top.

Table runner top completed

I used the pillowcase method to attach the batting and backing. Thanks to @Hobbs Quilt Batting for supplying the Thermore batting that I used in this project. I thought that this 100% polyester batting would be perfect for this project as it is very thin and no one wants a bulky table runner!

Hobbs Thermore batting

After I had prepared my quilt sandwich, I had to decide how to quilt it and I had several ideas on this. I decided to use vertical wavy lines in the center of the table runner and then do some “C” shapes in the first border and some peaks/triangles with 3 loops in the outer border. I used an oval ruler template to create the designs in the outer cornerstones.

Here’s the final result!

For more information on this table runner, please click here.

My first project as an Island Batik Ambassador is done but there’s more happening this week! Because it’s a blog hop, there are prizes each week.

This week, you could win one fat quarter of either Botanical Dreams or Fall Flair.

Week 1 prize options

To enter to win one of these fat quarter bundles, enter your details below.

Thanks to @Hobbs Quilt Batting, @Deb Tucker’s Studio 180 Design, @Oliso, and @islandbatik for the items that they sent me that allowed me to create this table runner project.

There will be many more projects coming from the other Island Batik Ambassadors this month - and more giveaways too! 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

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

#islandbatik #islandbatikambassador #loveislandbatik #hobbsbatting, #hobbsinside, #studio180design #olisoconnects #createwitholiso