Island Batik Ambassador Program: April Challenge

This month, the Island Batik Ambassadors were given the challenge to make a crazy quilt using the Aurifil Color Builder sets we were given.

I received the Hawaiian Blue Ginger set. Look how gorgeous these threads are!

As you can tell, my favorite from this set was color 4651, which is a variegated thread with shades of yellow and pink. 

I immediately knew that I would be pairing this lovely thread with fabric in shades of my favorite color, teal. I also knew I would not be making a quilt in the traditional sense. 

At first, I considered making a quilt coat. However, I have almost no experience with garment sewing, and wanted to be sure this project would come out great and be worthy of showing off the thread. So, I decided to do what I do best and make a bag.

I have been a huge fan of Patterns By Annie for quite a while now, and my By Annie Bag Makers Group on Facebook now has over 33,000 members in 94 countries. We are always sharing lots of photos and trying to come up with our own little creative twists to make the bags even more awesome.

I recently started working for ByAnnie, and part of my job is helping customers who have technical questions about the patterns. While I have already completed "more than a few" of the patterns, there are still many I have not yet made. I am doing my best to try all of them so I can better assist the customers.

As I was pawing through my patterns, I noticed that the tote portion of Annie's new pattern, Night and Day, has a lovely, wide open space that is perfect for showing off a favorite fabric, or, crazy quilting! Plus, I had not made this one yet, so it was an ideal choice.

Luckily, I already have quite the collection of luscious Island Batik scraps, and since I tend toward choosing fabrics in the teal/blue/green family, it was easy to quickly come up with a large pile of potential crazy quilt pieces. I also decided to use Cheerio in Bermuda as the lining and accent fabric for both parts of this project.

I started off by making the tote. Like all ByAnnie patterns, it was extremely well-written and made it easy to produce a professional quality bag. I used ByAnnie hardware in Antique Brass, and ByAnnie zippers in Navy. The rivets are not part of the pattern, but I look for pretty much any opportunity to add rivets to a project because they are fun and easy to add and I think they look awesome.

A neat added bonus of this tote is that it's reversible, so you can turn it inside out for a completely different look.

Once the tote was complete, I moved on to the purse. I am a huge fan of contrast, so I knew I was not going to make the purse with my shades of teal.

I sorted my Island Batik scraps by color family and found that I had enough in either the yellow/orange family or the pink/red family. I briefly considered using both, but decided it would be too jarring, so I settled on the pinks. I kept the Bermuda as lining and accent, so the tote and the purse would still go together.

I used a different Aurifil Color Builder set, Capri Teal, for the construction of the bags and for the parts that were not crazy quilted. 

The tote and the purse can be used separately or together. The purse makes a wonderful organizer when used inside the tote!

The crazy quilting can also be seen inside the purse, as a fun little surprise. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this pattern and will definitely make it again. The instructions are clear enough that an adventurous beginner could handle it. ByAnnie provides Add-On Videos that demonstrate some of the trickier steps. You can find the pattern at www.byannie.com/night-and-day

Thank you to Island Batik and Aurifil Thread for the gorgeous products and the fun challenge!