Island Batik July Challenge {Secondary Pattern Challenge}

The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik.

So...I'm not quite sure what happened to the month July. Or summer for that matter. My son goes back to school in just a little over a week, and I'll miss having him around. I will not miss the constant questions of "Can I play Fortnite?" and "What are we doing today?" Hopefully I can get back on track with my quilting!

The July Island Batik Ambassador challenge was to make a quilt with a secondary pattern. Half-square triangles are one of my favorite quilt blocks to play with, so I knew I wanted to use HSTs to make my July quilt. I browsed through the AccuQuilt Qube 72 Block Patterns and decided on the Go! Whirlpool 12" Block Pattern. 

The original pattern uses 3.5" (3" finished) HSTs to make a 12.5" (12" finished) block. I like big blocks, so I decided to use the 6.5" HST die (6" finished HST) and make 4 supersized, 24" blocks. We were on a family fishing trip in Minnesota for a week in July, but I took along my sewing machine to work on my quilt top. Here is the first 24" block completed on vacation.

A post shared by Stephanie Jacobson (@stephjacobsondesigns) on Jul 24, 2018 at 3:06pm PDT

I think I had to rip out and resew blocks and/or rows at least four times because I kept getting pieces in the wrong order. That's probably why I prefer random/improv sewing instead of using a pattern! Fortunately, the last three blocks went together much faster. When four of these whirlpool blocks are sewn together, they make a secondary pattern of a pinwheel as seen in the center of the quilt top. (Aren't HSTs awesome?!)

I wasn't able to get this top quilted, but I wanted to get my post up...and it's still 3 days late! Hopefully once school starts, we can get back on a schedule and I will be back to my regular quilting schedule.