A Quilt Full Of Kisses

July is baby month for us Island Batik Ambassadors. Somehow I procrastinate and end up finishing the challenge towards the end of the month.  I have good intentions  as soon as I finish the last month's challenge.  But again, I am teetering against the deadline.  This month I am 3 days early!  I'm hoping next month I'll be more punctual.

I chose to use a layer cake that has 10" squares from the Sweet Nectar line.

 The colors were bright and cheery, just right for a modern baby quilt. 

 I paired them with the lightest Island Batik background fabric that I could find, cut into 10" squares.

From the Island Batik layer cake fabrics, I cut 2 Curvalicious strips, backed with fusible web.

  I played with the layout a bit and I think I came up with ideas for future quilts.

But the quilt I had in mind from the beginning was Curvalicious Kisses.  What a great baby quilt it makes.  It's so sweet and filled with kisses!

After stitching down the fusible strips with a polyester variegated thread called Fantastico, I sewed together the 9 blocks

and added my favorite border using Curvalicious.  Here's a link to a video that shows how to do this.

I still need to quilt this quilt.  I have a longarm that has been sitting in my living room for almost 1 year.  I've quilted 2 quilts when it first arrived and since then, it has become  the most expensive horizontal storage shelf I have ever had!  I finally have a few unscheduled weeks and my plan is to clean it off, refresh my memory and quilt this baby quilt and a few more.

My new box filled with Island Batik fabrics arrived today.  I view it as my reward for finishing my July assignment.  I'm going to shoot a short video when I open it and share all the goodies.  I'll share it on FB, IG and my August newsletter.  

Think about it.  What would you do if you received a box filled with free fabric???

It's Monday, Again

It truly is amazing how quickly Monday rolls around, week after week.  I am often juggling paper work, designing, kit making, sewing and correspondence so I often work straight through the weekend.  I do think about the saying that 

"if you love your work, you'll never work a day in your life", and I love my work. 

But this Saturday I left my studio for a multi-faceted visit to Philadelphia.

Gaffney's is a great fabric store in a part of the city  called Germantown.  It's got a little bit of everything with great prices.  And when they have a holiday sale, it's irresistible.  I am constantly on the search for cream colored batiks.  At Gaffneys, they are usually $6.99/yd.  Take off $1/yd on sale days and I buy whatever remains on the bolt.  I hit the motherload on Saturday.

Driving to the Famous 4th Street Deli for lunch, we found a huge surprise!  A couple of mosaics 

were located on  buildings on Bainbridge Street.

They reminded me of my visit to Philadelphia Magic Gardens a few years ago, filled with mosaics by Isaiah Zagar. He makes murals out of recycled found objects.  I found out there's a mosaic mural map of his mosaics  all over Philadelphia.  You can see it HERE.  This really opens up many road trips to different parts of Philly.

And then there was lunch:

I LOVE corned beef and a good kosher style deli.  It's in my DNA! Unless you share at the  Famous 4th Street Deli, I always go home with a doggie bag and a meal for the next day.  One of their desserts is enough for 4-6 people. It's a very dangerous place, but I love it.

But, my favorite part of the day was watching my favorite little boy playing in the dirt on the T-ball field.