Blog hop with Scott Hansen's 'Tie One On' fabrics from Banyan Batiks
There are 3 projects and a New Pattern in this blog post. Make sure to scroll to the bottom to see all three!
Also, comment on this blog and you will be entered to win a Fat Quarter bundle of these beautiful Tie One On fabrics! (more info at the end of this blog)
First, let’s talk just a minute about the man of the hour, Scott Hansen, from Blue Nickel Studios! I first met Scott a couple of years ago teaching at Quilter’s Affair in Sisters. Here he is holding a 500 year old piece of ice from the Columbia Glacier in Alaska. I had the privilege of being one of the teachers along with him for the Valdez Quilt Festival a couple of weeks ago, and had the pleasure of getting to spend a little time with him! This photo represents him perfectly - happy and ready for adventure!
I couldn’t be happier for Scott and the very successful debut of his first fabric line. When he asked me if I wanted to be part of his Blog Hop, I knew it would be fun!
So these are the Tie One On fabrics I received from Banyan Batiks (a division of Northcott) for creating something for this blog tour. These fabrics are from the Sedona and Nashville collections which I was super excited about, and I immediately knew what I wanted to do with them!
First, I tiny bit of background on why this was so easy for me to figure out what to do with these fabrics! I was exposed to art at an early age, and my first memories of really being aware of ‘art’ were from trips to Arizona to visit my grandparents at their winter Airstream home in Apache Junction. My Grandma Zella (and my Mom) both love(d) Southwestern art, and both have collected some beautiful items over the years. Grandma was a great artist herself and did quite a bit of painting and most every other kind of craft you can imagine. They had classes at the trailer park common area and I think she took every one - macrame, quilling, decoupage, beaded ming trees, jewelry making, quilting, etc. I took a macrame class there one winter and think I need to get back to that as it is becoming so popular again.
Grandma Zella took me to my first quilt class in 1985. Need I say more?
Below are some images of these early influences.
Top Left: Grandpa Frank and Grandma Zella at Apache Junction. Top Right: A painting of pots by my Grandma Zella. Bottom Left: A watercolor I did (high school or college) as a Christmas present for my Mom of my interpretation of a De Grazia painting. Bottom Right: My Mom’s collection of pots and other treasures from her trips down south. My parents winter down in Wickenburg, AZ every winter and my Mom and I have road tripped all over.
I digress - back to my project! So here is what I came up with! This is my Tie One On Dream Catcher! I am afraid I didn’t get time to have it quilted yet, but I am excited to share it with you in it’s raw form anyway! I am planning on adding a wide, randomly pieced binding on this wall hanging using the same batiks to set it off.
“Dream Catchers are a spiritual tool used to help assure good dreams to those that sleep under them. A dream catcher is usually placed over a place you would sleep where the morning light can hit it. As you sleep all dreams from the spirit world have to pass through the dream catcher. Only good dreams can pass through to the dreamer while the bad dreams are caught in the webbing and are destroyed by the first rays of the morning light.” -Dreamcatchers.com
And here are some photos of the construction process. I decided to use Essex Linen by Robert Kaufmann for the background. I love the texture it provides against these beautiful batiks.
Below are pics of making the 24” Skinny Robin 32-Point Mariner’s Compass block from Little Pie to the finished block. Then I sewed on a bias band around the outside of the block for the ‘hoop’.
For those of you visiting my blog for the first time, this is a strip-piecing method for making mariner’s compass blocks - no paper piecing! Below is a construction overview for making a Skinny Robin and a Fat Robin 16-Point Mariner’s Compass block.
I made the middle 10” 32-Point Compass Sunflower (Version 1) and added a 1/2” bias binding for it’s ‘hoop’. Then I started work on the top Southwestern motif border - just strips cut at a 45˚angle into smaller units and then sewn back together again!
On to the feathers. I made some strip sets out of various size strips and then cut them apart at a 45˚ angle - you need to make two identical strip sets and then cut them apart with the 45˚ going in the opposite direction for each strip set. Then I overlapped them and cut a curved middle (some are more curvy than others) and sewed the two pieces together. After that I just cut them into a general feather shape and faced them with other fabric (left an opening for turning on the side). I top stitched around them to close the opening and to make them lay more flat.
I pieced together the quilt including the Southwestern top border and machine appliquéd the compass unit onto the background. Then I actually ‘tied’ (you know, Tie One On - ha!) the dreamcatcher compasses onto the hoop with some embroidery yarn.
The feathers were added last by looping some embroidery yarn through the hoop stitching and tacking the feathers on to knots tied in the yarn. I just have the feathers pinned on for this pic, as they will be removed for quilting and then added back and tacked down for my finished project. I thought it would be fun to have a little 3-D effect with the feathers! And there you have it - Tie One On Dream Catcher!
This Tie One On Dream Catcher project was made using the Skinny Robin 16-Point Mariner’s Compass Book and Ruler Combo (or the previous Skinny Robin 45˚ Mariner’s Compass Book/Ruler and Skinny Robin Companion Booklet) and the 32-Point Mariner’s Compass Book and Ruler Combo.
And introducing my new Flower Cocktail Pattern!
This is not my first rodeo using Scott’s new line of fabric. Earlier this year he asked me to come up with something using his fabrics for Spring Quilt Market. I decided to use all (well most all) of the fabrics in his entire collection to come up with this beautiful “Flower Cocktail”. I just love how all these colors play so well together!
And funny that at the time I named this quilt I thought Tie One On had something to do with drinking alcoholic beverages. I had a good laugh when I realized it was more about men’s neck ties than cocktails!
Flower Cocktail Quilt 60” x 60”
Such a fun quilt to make! It features 4 different style compass blocks nested on top of each other, and has a couple partial compass blocks around the perimeter with tons of colorful leaves. I used a simple facing method to make the leaves and all the template shapes come in the pattern.
Wanda Rains (see a project of hers below), of Rainy Day Quilts, quilted this for me, and I just love how she quilted different motifs throughout the compass flower and on each leaf! Brilliant!
Flower Cocktail Pattern front and back covers.
Flower Cocktail was made using the Fat Robin 16-Point Mariner’s Compass Book and Ruler Combo (or the previous Fat Robin 60˚ Mariner’s Compass Book/Ruler and Fat Robin Companion Booklet) and the 32-Point Mariner’s Compass Book and Ruler Combo.
And last, but certainly not least, is this gorgeous project made by Wanda Rains of Rainy Day Quilts!
Many of you who follow me are probably familiar with Wanda Rains as she quilts practically everything I do! We have developed a very special partnership over the last couple of years. I love collaborating with her - I may have an idea of a direction I’d like to go, or how much or how little quilting I might like, but then I just let her do her thing. It always turns out exactly how I thought it should even if I didn’t know what that was! Wanda has been professionally long arm quilting since November, 1997 and her work has been in every major show and in many quilt publications.
When I brought her my Flower Cocktail to quilt, she absolutely fell in love with Scott’s fabric line and … I just happened to have a few scraps left over. Look what she came up with! I was blown away by this quilt and it’s clever use of Scott’s fabrics. She said this design came from a class she took 20 years ago from Nancy Elliott called “Rounds”. Wanda still had the templates on hand and put them to good use for the beautiful rendition!
Thanks so much for reading this blog and hope you have enjoyed all the projects using the Tie One On fabric collection by Banyan Batiks!
Until next time, happy compassing!
Robin
Here’s your reminder to enter to win a fat quarter bundle by commenting on my blog below. I will be picking a winner at random. Tell me what your favorite cocktail is - alcoholic or not! And share the recipe if you choose!
Entries will be open until Sunday September 30th, I’ll pick a winner on October 1st.
Visit Teri, Sue, Cheryl, Linda, Sheri, Debby, Blair and Kim for more opportunities!
Visit Blue Nickel Studios, there are some opportunities there!
Saturday 9/22 – Teri Lucas https://terificreations.com/
Sunday 9/23 – Robin Long http://robinruthdesign.com/blog/
Monday 9/24 – Sue O’Very https://sueoverydesigns.com/blog/
Tuesday 9/25 – Cheryl Arkison http://www.cherylarkison.com/diningroomempire/
Wednesday 9/26 – Linda Sullivan https://colourwerx.wordpress.com/
Thursday 9/27 – Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill http://blog.wholecirclestudio.com/
Friday 9/28 – Debby Brown http://higheredhands.blogspot.com/
Saturday 9/29 – Blair Stocker https://wisecrafthandmade.com/blog/
Sunday 9/30 – Kim Niedzwiecki http://www.gogokim.com/