Atomic Fizz with Island Batik

I have been admiring the Atomic Starburst quilt by Violet Craft for a long time.  It has very pointy paper piecing, which I do enjoy from time to time.  I decided to make a version for my Starstruck Island Batik Ambassador challenge.  The challenge was meant to be published in September.  I almost made it.

I started the quilt way back in July, while I was on vacation.

I decided to use my Furocious Friends fabric, the same group I used for my August project, along with a neutral fabric I love.  I was doing so well – two blocks were pieced while I was on vacation.

Then they just sat.  As it turns out, I don’t really enjoy following patterns.  I stewed over the pattern for a few weeks before inspiration struck.  I took my pdf file over to the local FedEx copy shop (when did it stop being Kinko’s?) and had the pattern enlarged by 400% and 200%.  They have a large format printer that I am always looking for excuses to use. Be warned, though – those printouts are not cheap.

Here is the biggest star next to the original size.  Now I started to get excited.

My teenage son came down to the studio to discuss the layout with me once all of my stars were pieced.  (He tried to avoid being photographed, but there is no escape from the MamaRazzi.)  If you notice – there are four sizes.  Not only did I scale the original up, I also shrank it.  Those tiny ones are so cute!  I really want to make some even smaller, but the sane portion of my brain made me stop.

We played with the solid colored diamonds for a while, as the original quilt has both solid diamonds and stars.  The solids just weren’t doing it for me, so I dropped them in favor of a fully white background.

This part got a little complicated.  Since I deviated so far from the original pattern, I had to devise a setting solution on my own.  I cut out diamonds in sizes matching the pieces I had made, and puzzled it together.  Here, you can see a spot where I discovered a mistake.  Ripping and fixing after congratulating myself on being a genius was disappointing.

I’m having to crop the photos tighter and tighter, because the mess of scraps at this point in the project is just astonishing.  The edges here aren’t even close to straight, but I am okay with it – the setting triangles are just guesses and meant to be trimmed up at the end, after quilting.

Step one of quilting is choosing thread colors.  I got a decent match for all of the stars by going through my Aurifil and Omni collections.  I also used a Hobbs Tuscany Wool batting that was sent along with my Island Batik Ambassador box.  Wool batting is so much fun to work with when custom quilting.  The texture is unbelievable.

On the longarm, I started by echoing the star shape in the background.  I alternated narrow and wide channels.  I added curving shapes in the wide channels to add texture and interest to the background.

The quilting took me a lot longer than I had anticipated.  I spent about a day and a half on this piece, which is relatively small.  I neglected to measure it, but I would say it is about 44″ x 50″.

I pieced a few little pops of color into the binding.  I am totally in love with it.  James (my hairy helper) has claimed it for his personal quilt collection.  It will be hung on his wall soon.

The backing is a Karen Lewis print (I think) combined with some Essex Linen.  I really need to beef up my wide back collection.

This photo has more of an angle to the light, so you can see how excessive the quilting is.

Oscar was rather jealous of the amount of attention the quilt was getting.  Beauty was just annoyed that I woke her up when I went outside.

Thank you so much to Island Batik, Aurifil Thread, and Hobbs Batting for providing me with such wonderful products to experiment with.