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Hi, I will be sharing what I consider a fun quilt top finish. I first made the Batik Shadowbox quilt in 2012 and it was a gift for a family friend. It is one of my most popular blogged and shared quilts. I have had a stack of batik squares sitting in my stash for years and decided to remake this quilt.

This version is slightly different than my first as I had 5 inch charm squares to work with. I used the dimensions from Elena McDowell’s Color Block quilt pattern. My original quilt used 6.5 to 7.5 inch squares and I had drawn the block out to look like a quilt I saw in American Patchwork and Quilting’s Quilt Sampler that was on a shop wall with no mention of what it was. This quilt has 81 blocks and my first one only had 49 blocks. 

There just are not many photos of me. This was one of those late night finishes and a snapshot after 2 AM before we wrapped the quilt up to be gifted. 7 years later and my sewing room still looks similar at times. I am working on cleaning it up this month. I am happy to say I weigh quite a bit less now and that’s something to be happy about.

Here are some work in progress photos. That blue vine batik has been a favorite for years. I started out with a huge stack of fat quarters and made 5 quilts over the years. I did add some extra fat quarters along the way to supplement. This quilt finished off what I had in my stash.

This is a sample layout of the blocks that I shared on Instagram.

This is my pieced top before I figured out how I was going to make my borders. This was approximately 67 inches square.

This is the finished remake of the Batik Shadowbox quilt. It is such a fun pattern. I really like the block and have seen fun versions of the shadowbox that was made into tshirt quilts.

As a trip down memory lane of all the quilts that I have made from these same fabrics.

This is my High Tea which was a pattern tested quilt for Adrianne who blogs as On The Windy Side. This was gifted to my Daughter inlaw’s Grandmother. Blogged here .

This is Catawampus and is a Freckled Whimsy pattern. It finishes at 100 inches square. Blogged here.

This is Flying Happy by My Fabric Relish which is part of the Positive Trio pattern. It finishes at approximately 70 inches square. Blogged here.

I didn’t get photos of the first quilt that I made from these fabrics. It was made from a Moda Bake Shop tutorial and the remaining pieces of the fat quarters is what I based the first batik shadowbox on. This quilt went to my best friend and is still being well loved 7 years later. She doesn’t let her husband or daughter use it. 

The new Batik Shadowbox, Catawampus and Flying Happy are all in the works to be finished quilted this year and likely put up for sale. I do love them all but one can’t keep all the quilts. Well one can….but I don’t have room.

Thank you for stopping by my blog. Your comments are greatly appreciated and I am working to get everyone replied to.

Hope you all are having a great week.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

Hi,

I have been having computer problems since Thursday night. I do have my quilt top completed but my computer crashed before I could type and upload my planned tutorial. I will start replying back to my blog comments today as I can access them from my phone.

If you have access to my blog’s Facebook or my IG  #shelleymichellefolkerts   , you can see additional work in progress photos.

I will upload my tutorials and photos as soon as I can get back online.

Thank you.

Shelley

Hi, It seems like forever since the last time I wrote a blog post. I think it has actually been 24 days. I have been dreaming of sewing and quilting. But… We have been busy working around our house and farm fixing things up. We are going to refinance our mortgage and the new company required us to fix some things first.

We had to take down a 115 year old barn that was in disrepair. There really was no way to save much of it. We did pull out some old beams and lumber that was stored inside but that was about it. We had two other small sheds and an old building that was once a chicken coop that needed to be taken down as well.

There were several nuisance trees that grew along that barn and some actually up through the back of the barn. Some branches of the trees that did not fully burn are all that remains other than some old straw that was in the haymound. It burned and smoldered for days. It is really strange to be able to look out back and see the back barn. You never could see it with the view of obstructed by the larger old barn.

My daughter and I did lots of painting inside. We did our kitchen and bathroom. We got a new shower set up and tub/shower surround. We got vinyl flooring installed in the kitchen which I love for the ease of cleaning.

We have spent many days and numerous hours working on the house. To get the kitchen flooring installed, this meant my entire kitchen spilled over in to the living room and sewing room/office for most of a week as we decided to paint while everything was out of there.

It has certainly been interesting and challenging to work on the house with a young puppy under foot. We had to tie Katie outside while we painted in kitchen and she decided to show her displeasure when we were outside with our backs turned to her so we could wash out painting brushes and rollers with the hose out in the driveway. This is what we found when we were finished.

Apparently it is not as fun to get sprayed with the hose to get washed down as it is to dig in the mud created by a leaky hose connection.

If Katie was not making a mess than she was destroying one of her toys or actually our 10 year Black Lab’s prized toys.

Katie gave Mr. Sock Monkey a Squeakerectomy while my husband was in the shower getting ready for work. He opened the door to see cotton fluff allover the floor and her standing there with fluff hanging from her mouth. Busted!!

I am slowly getting back to doing some sewing this week. I am participating in the Midnight Mystery Quilt Along and our August instructions was to create Flying Geese blocks.

My geese are made from silver gray and Catsup red solids. I have picked a Patriotic theme for my quilt.

I have finished cutting squares from my black and white print fabrics to use in the Plus quilt tutorial over at The Colorful Fabriholic. I am going to use the red squares I miscut from the Midnight Mystery Quiltalong and the other prints come from my Charming and Broken Frames quilts. I need to get a design wall up this week as I just can not really layout the squares for this quilt top on my cutting table desk and get a good look at how it should be.

I have dug down into my stash of fabric and pulled out some prints that are from the late 90’s or early 2000. They may not really be in style anymore but I thought they just might work to try out the tutorial for Single Wedding Ring over at the Fat Quarter Shop. It is part of their classic and vintage series of patterns.

I hope to get sewing on the Single Wedding Ring blocks this week. My first priority is to design a block for the Fabri-Quilt New Block Quilt Hop. We were given a set of solid fat eighths and we are to design a 12.5 inch quilt block with them without adding any additional fabrics. This is something new for me and at this moment I do not have any ideas on what to create. Mine has to be done and uploaded on September 1st so I better get cracking. I will be digging out my colored pencils and graph paper. Going old school since I do not own EQ7 quilt design software like many of my fellow New Bloggers group that are participating in this challenge with me.

Also for new future sewing, I am signed up to sew in the Dog Gone Cute Quilt Along over at Sew Fresh Quilts. I have my pattern purchased and hope to pull some fabrics this week. This quilt along starts up on September 1st as well.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Our kids are coming home for the weekend and it is family reunion weekend as well. This is always a good time with lots of good food to eat.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley