Curlicue Creations

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

It's All Up to You Challenge featuring Levi's Ladder

Is it December already? This year is almost all wrapped up and I'm not ready. I moved over Thanksgiving week and my house is still in chaos. But I did manage to finish my December project for Island Batik Lumin Fabrics Ambassadors. This is my quilt, Levi's Ladder.

Disclaimer: The items used to make this project were given to me by Island Batik Lumin Fabrics and Industry Sponsors.

This month the Challenge was "It's All Up to You", which basically means we can make anything we want to. My son Levi graduated from UNCW this month, so I chose to make him a graduation quilt.

I'm so proud of him! What a special day.

Teal is the main color for his school, so I used the Tantalizing Teal strip pack for my quilt. I used every bit of it! It's a beautiful range of blues and greens.

I designed my quilt in EQ8 and cut out the pieces with my Accuquilt 8" Qube.

This quilt has 2808 pieces in the top. It took me a long time to sew it all together. The blocks are 6" x 6". My Oliso iron sure came in handy pressing everything nice and flat.

After my move, part of my sewing studio is back inside my home. The cats really enjoyed getting back to work and "helping" me sew again. Here Jake is selecting some beautiful Aurifil thread. I paired it with my favorite Schmetz needles for nearly flawless piecing.

I used Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Bleached Cotton for this project.

I also used some stash busters in yellow and teal. The yellow added some bright accents to the quilt. I used the teal for the borders.

Sunrise helped keep the rows in order while I pieced the top together.

Here is one of the blocks. This is a traditional quilt block, Jacob's Ladder. There are 28 pieces in each block, wow! I strip pieced the four patches, but it was still a lot of stitching.

Here is what one block looks like quilted with a loopy meander. You can see a lot of different teals in this one.

Quilting close up.

Jake again. She made a formidable speed bump as I was sewing on the quilt binding.

Levi's Ladder

Quilt Stats:

Quilt Size: 70" x 70"

Block Size: 6" x 6"

Fabric: Tantalizing Teal and Assorted Stash Builders by Island Batik Lumin Fabrics

Thread: Aurifil

Needles: Schmetz

Batting: Hobbs 80/20 Bleached Cotton

Dies: Accuquilt 8" Qube

Designed in EQ8

That's all folks! 2025 is a wrap for me. Thank you so much Island Batik Lumin Fabrics for a year of fun challenges. Check out my fellow ambassador's blogs to see what they made for the It's All Up to You December challenge, here:

Brenda Alburl ~ Songbird Designs
Renee Atkinson ~ Pink Tulip Quilting
Susan Deshensky ~ Lady Blue Quilts Studio
Tina Dillard ~ Quilting Affection Designs
Brittany Fisher ~ Bobbin with Brittany
Kimberly Flannagan ~ Kimberly’s Quilts
Preeti Harris ~ Sew Preeti Quilts
Mania Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for quilts
Kim Jamieson-Hirst ~ Chatterbox Quilts
Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs
Suzy Webster ~ Websterquilt
Connie Kresin Campbell ~ Freemotion by the River
Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood
Denise Looney ~ A Quiltery
Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights
Susan Michaels ~ Dragonfly Fiberart
Lisa Pickering ~ Lisa’s Quilting Passion
Sarah Pitcher ~ Pitcher's Boutique
Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail
Carol Stanek ~ Stitch with Color
Solomae Stoycoff ~ Cuddle Cat Quiltworks
Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations (You are here)

Be Creative ~ Sew Something Beautiful Today,

Jennifer Thomas

Curlicue Creations

Click here to visit the Curlicue Creations Etsy Shop.

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Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Timeless Traditions Blog Hop featuring Summertime

This is Summertime, the quilt I made for the Timeless Traditions blog hop.

Disclaimer: The products used to make this quilt were given to me by Island Batik Lumin Fabrics and Industry Partners.

It's blog hop time for the Island Batik Ambassadors (Lumin Fabrics)! This is the month we showcase all the new fabric collections coming to your local shops. It is a lot of fun. This time around we were challenged to make a quilt with at least five traditional quilt blocks. We were given a list of blocks to choose from.

The fabric I received for the challenge is Hello Sunshine, designed by Jerry Khiev. Isn't it beautiful? This has got to be one of my favorite collections that I've worked with as an Island Batik Ambassador. It's all pink and yellow with a touch of red ~ fabulous!

I used my Accuquilt Go Qube 8" Block dies to cut out all of the pieces for my blocks. So quick and easy!

I did the math to figure out how many pieces I needed from each die and then cut them randomly from the fabrics. I used all 20 of the Hello Sunshine fabrics.

Here is one of the blocks I made, using four half square triangle blocks. For this quilt, I wanted to experiment with random color placement, instead of placing light and dark contrasting fabrics next to each other to make the design. I wanted to create a hot and melty looking quilt where the elements of each block flowed into each other.

I used Island Batik's solid black to sew the blocks into three strips, creating a lightning strike zigzag pattern separating the blocks from each other. I like the way the black makes the blocks pop out, like stained glass windows, but I'm also curious to try making the random melty blocks again and setting them together without any sashing or other fabric breaking the mood. I hope I have time to experiment with this idea in the future.

I used my Oliso iron to press all the seams nice and flat.

I used Hobbs Premium 80/20 Black Cotton Batting for this project. This batting works well when you are making a quilt with a lot of black in it.

Other sponsored items I used for this project include:

Aurifil thread

Schmetz needles

I quilted in an allover loopy meander. I used a lovely light yellow fabric from the collection for the backing and bound it with this pretty pink ferny fabric.

Summertime Quilt

Quilt Stats:

Quilt Size: 37" x 48"

Block Size: 8" x 8"

Fabric: Hello Sunshine, by Jerry Khiev for Island Batik Lumin Fabrics

Batting: Hobbs Black 80/20 Cotton

Thread: Aurifil

Needles: Schmetz

Iron: Oliso

Dies: Accuquilt Go 8" Qube

Designed in EQ8

Here's a few more pics of Summertime for your viewing enjoyment:

Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to visit the Island Batik Lumin Fabrics blog and enter to win their weekly fat quarter bundle giveaway during the hop.

Here's the complete list of the blog hop so you can see all the new fabrics and inspiring Timeless Traditions quilts made by the Island Batik Ambassador team.

WEEK 1

November 3:

Brenda Alburl, Songbird Designs

Susan Deshensky, Lady Blue Quilt Studio