Navigating the Stars featuring Tradewinds Batiks

Hello Riley Blake friends!! It’s Melissa Corry here, from Happy Quilting and today I am am thrilled to share another new Batik finish with all of you! Expression Batiks are quickly becoming a favorite to work with. I just love all of the gorgeous colors and prints, and the hand is so great. And pretty much, I have fallen in love with them. I was particularly struck by the beautiful rich colors of this new Tradewinds Collection. I just released 4 new patterns and am excited to make them in Batik collections now!! I picked Navigating the Stars for this Tradewinds Collection because the pattern design was inspired by a rose compass on an old map, so I figured Tradewinds went right along with that!

The Navigating the Stars Quilt is Fat Quarter Friendly, so you can just grab a bundle and get cutting and piecing. I made the Twin Size quilt, which uses 20 Fat Quarters, so this bundle had just the right amount of prints, with two prints to spare for the accent and background fabrics.

I pulled this Cinnamon print from the line to be the accent of all the interlocking stars. It really is the perfect print in the line as it has enough color difference to stand out, but not so much that it is overpowering. And then for the background, I used the beautiful neutral Phloof print . I just love how it reads as nuetral to make all of the prints shine, but still has some fun detail in it. Like I said, these prints fit the pattern just perfect!

And while this might look a little complex, the Navigating the Stars Quilt Pattern mainly uses one technique of stitch and flip corners. And it is a great quilt to work on lining up your points, while still having the forgiving nature of the entire block being made of one print. And you know I wrote the directions so that all of your diagonal seams will nest! I love that it allows me to piece the entire block without using pins, so great! Again, this is the Twin Size quilt, but the pattern has multiple size options so you can make whatever size works for you 😉

And this was quilted with a gorgeous echoed feathered swirls in the background and two rotating motifs in the blocks centers. My amazing MIL, Barbara did the quilting on this and it is just beautiful. And I espeically love this picture because it really shows both aspects of the block. In the block on the left you see the star in the background popping out. But in the block on the right you see the square cross in the print popping out. I love it when a block has two designs hidden in one block! It’s just so fun.

And that is my Square Dance Quilt featuring the Tradewinds Expression Batik Collection! I hope you have enjoyed this post and make your own Navigating the Stars Quilt!!! And if you do, I would love to see it! You can share your projects with me on social media with the hashtags #happyquiltingmc and #navigatingthestarsquilt and tagging @happyquiltingmc and @rileyblakedesigns or email me a picture at happyquiltingmelissa@gmail.com. I can’t wait to see your Navigating the Stars Quilts!

Thank you so much for joining me today! I am so happy to have discovered the joy of quilting with Batiks and am excited to share more batik quilts in the future. Thank you so much to my wonderful friends at Riley Blake for having me here and for creating such amazing fabrics for us all to sew with! 

I hope you have a very Happy Quilting Day!!!