QAYG with Island Batik

The theme for August is Quilt as you Go!

and for long arm quilters like me, I was clueless as to how to do it…

I looked at a few ideas online and then decided to go simple!

The size requirements WERE 36 x 36 or bigger (I’m just giving someone a hard time as the size requirements got lowered recently, AFTER I finished my quilt of course)- I don’t care really

So I started off with a piece of backing, here I had a yard of a pinkish purple batik that came with my box last time and I never had it “fit” any project until now, so I put that on the frame and adding batting.

Then I busted out this pack of 5” strips that was also in the box or maybe even from last year!?

I picked out a few rolls that were purple or pink or at least closer to girly colors, because with a 1yd backing, I was thinking a baby quilt- can’t ever have too many of those lying around and ready to give away!

So I sort of figured out my own technique. I first basted down a 5” strip at the top and just basted on the sides and the top.

Then I picked another strip and trimmed it to whatever size, I think this one is around 2” or so and then I’d have a 3” piece leftover.

I then “sewed” that strip one with the long arm, as the foot is a 1/4” I just laid the strip right sides together and sewed on the bottom edge from side to side and then flipped the new piece back down

As I had recently gotten a clamshell template/ruler for long arm quilting (not my newest one, but this other one inspired me to buy my newest one that’s different sizes) I quilted a clamshell pattern all over the first strip

Then added more strips, one at a time, and as before, I’d add one strip, sew it to the previous strip, then flip it down and I believe I basted just the sides, then went back and quilted the previous strip and so one.

I filled it in with a different design on each strip and I also tried to have the repeated batik leftover strip be 3-4 rows further down.

I tried feathers, bubbles, a mini clamshell! (that one was hard on the hands! good thing it was only 3” times the width of the strip.

Actually I think I trimmed all the strips to 36” or so before adding them.

This was another template I tried, it’s meant for a wreath design I think but I just treated it like a leaf and moved it down the line.

Here’s the completed quilt! I think it ended up being 36 x 40” or around there…

I found a fun left over batik that I used for the binding and I machine stitched it down with a fun leaf stitch.

Here’s a view of the backing, as you can see, you can see the straight lines on each row.

it’s not a different color, I think it’s just the light in the room that made it look so pink!

Here the quilt “melted” outside on our new deck

It was a fun quilt, and I learned something new, as I’ve never done a QAYG quilt, and certainly not on the long arm!

I did learn that I really have to make sure the new strips are perfectly flat when adding the new strip, because at the end, the whole thing was slightly crooked or had shrunk, so I had to trim it after it was quilted.

Would I do it again? I don’t know, I might look up a different technique or actually I want to try whole cloth quilting one day!