December Challenge

Lumin Fabrics challenge for this month, December, is "It's all up to you".

This month I wanted to make a quilt that was more inspired by candy; think stripes and curves and twists, etc.

I pulled up my programs and got to designing something different but with a lot of clean lines. I wanted some room to do some hand quilting as well, so I wanted some solid fabric (like the batik grey, white or black).

After a few ideas I came up with this design:

I had the two 10 inch square packs; Hello Sunshine and Autumn Twilight; and with these two 10 inch squares I could cover most of the red, pink, orange, light blue, dark blue and a little teal.

I still needed and wanted to add yellow, green, teal and purple. I dug through a few of my strips and fat quarters that were left over from other projects.

This was what I ended up pulling together and it seemed like it would work, so now I needed to get to sewing and cutting.

After laying all my fabric out, and doing some calculations I decided to go with Red, Pink, Orange, Yellow, Green, Teal, Light Blue, Dark Blue and Purple. I also moved the curves to red and then let the rest of the colors follow. This was due to some size and fabric amounts that weren't going to work on the curves, so that took a minute to change things up.

Stripes were sewn and then curves.

Finally the top was done.

I decided on the black batting, since the entire quilt was dark and accented with black batik.

The Hobbs 80/20 Black cotton batting is by far my favorite batting! I need to order this batting on a full roll because I make a ton of dark quilts like 75% of the time. This batting is the best. Thanks Hobbs Batting.

Once the quilt was sandwiched:

I needed to decide on the quilting. I knew I wanted to add hand quilting to the black batik but I also wanted to tack most of the quilt down with just regular quilting as well.

Using Aurifil black thread I did some straight line and curved quilting to just get a nice sandwiched quilt to make it easier to handle while hand quilting.

I then spent another week and a half adding hand quilting designs down each black batik area.

While hand quilting I did in fact break a needle. This was a shocking first for me.

I did a few more stitches.

Finally, I added black batik binding, and finished this quilt up!

I love how this one turned out, and I think a scrappy version or pastel version would make for a cute quilt as well.

So with that here is my final Island Batik quilt for 2025:

and with that, I want to say thank you to all the other ambassadors:

Brenda Alburl- https://songbirddesigns.blog

Renee Atkinson- https://wordpress.com/posts/pinktulipquilting.studio

Susan Deshensky- www.ladybluequilts.com/blog

Tina Dillard- https://quiltingaffection.blogspot.com/

Brittany Fisher- Www.bobbinwithbrittany.com

Kimberly Flannagan- https://www.kimberlysquilts.com/blog

Preeti Harris- https://sewpreetiquilts.blogspot.com

Mania Hatziioannidi- www.maniaforquilts.com

Kim Jamieson-Hirst- https://www.chatterboxquilts.com/blog

Connie Kauffman- Kauffmandesigns.blogspot.com

Connie Kresin Campbell- https://conniekresin.com/

Emily Leachman- https://thedarlingdogwood.blogspot.com/

Denise Looney- https://quiltery.com

Leah Malasky- www.quilteddelights.com

Susan Michaels-https://dragonflyfiberart.blogspot.com/

Lisa Pickering- https://lisasquiltingpassion.blog/

Gail Sheppard- https://quiltinggail.com/

Carol Stanek- stitchwithcolor.blogspot.com

Solomae Stoycoff- https://cuddlecatquiltworks.com/blogs/island-batik-ambassador-blog

Jennifer Thomas- https://curlicuecreations.com

Suzy Webster- www.websterquilt.com

This year was full of amazing challenges and I really enjoyed all the items I was able to create, and I am so thankful to have been able to create with all the beautiful fabric, the wonderful Hobbs batting, the Aurifil thread and the Schmetz Needles. Thank you all for the support.

Don't worry, I am still creating and have tons more to show off, so stay tuned as I will post the Steampunk FPP Quilt soon and announce my 2026 theme for the block of the month!

Happy Sewing!