It's All Up To You

March is It's All Up To You! for the Island Batik Ambassadors. I thought about starting a new project, but I thought it was best to finish three Island Batik UFO's. Well, I finished two and I made progress on the third one.

The first UFO, was a Mondo bag, using English Lavender by Island Batik of course. The Mondo bag is a pattern by Quiltsmart. You iron on your 2-1/2" squares to the interfacing and then iron the four units. Once you get that part done, you assemble the four units. Next, you iron the lining to four pieces of fleece interfacing; then you make your two straps. At this point, I always feel like I am on my way to home base, because I am almost done.

I gifted the Mondo bag to a young lady who works at my dog's daycare. She usually has pink or purple hair. I asked her what her favorite color was and she exclaimed, "purple!" I knew that UFO would be a good fit for her. In fact, when I gave it to her, she said that it looked like her hair!

My second UFO, was to finish up "Pocket Compass" by Quiltworx. I had designed it on Quiltster. For all of my projects, I used Aurifil gray 50 wt. thread and Schmetz 70/10 Microtex needles.

I used solids: dark grey, black, white, grey, orange, turquoise, green and fuchsia. I used the following blenders: Tangy, Raspberry, Azure and Lemongrass. I paper pieced the units, added the black vein and began assembling the units. There are t-templates in the white border. T-templates need to be cut as perfect as possible, because they are not paper pieced. The border was not paper pieced either; it was a strip of fabric sewn on and then cut at a 45 degree angle at the ends. The end design was four triangles that were sewn together into two halves.

Adding the veins onto my G units.

Ready to begin assembling the units!

My border ends did not have smart corners, so I made my own using the Marti Mitchell "Deluxe Corner Trimmer and Hand Piecing Aid". This is a great little tool to have!

For perfect pressing, it's great to have my Oliso iron with me every step of the way!

Tweaking my center, so that it lays nice and flat.

My top is all done and ready to be quilted! Project two done (well, almost done).

Project three was strips/batting that I had started sewing. I wasn't sure if I was going to make a rug or a bag. I did finish sewing forty strips, so I am ready to sew them together. My machine is not too fond of sewing the strips together, so I am working on that part.

I used an Island Batik Chromatic 2-1/2" strip set.

Stay tuned for the grand finale of project three! I am pretty sure I know what I am going to make; it's a great carry all tote for the beach by Aunties Two.

Thanks for reading my blog. If you have any tips for sewing those strips together, let me know! April is going to be a fun month, lots of stuffed animals from Funky Friends Factory.