Island Batik Its All Up to You December Challenge - Gemstones Quilt

December 7, 2025

Island Batik its All Up to You Challenge

The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik and their industry sponsors.

For December, the Ambassadors could make anything we wanted! Any size, any theme, any technique. For inspiration, I opened my fabric closet and pulled out the remaining fabric received in my Ambassador Boxes this year that I hadn't used. My eyes lit on the beautiful stack from the Under the Sea collection (Under the Sea was designed by Jerry Khiev for Swan Amity Studios):

Along with the fabric stack, I received two yards of the matching print shown on the left (SKU 712501490), which was perfect for the sashing and borders! For the background fabric, I chose Icing, from the Foundations/Neutrals collection (right).

Since I had 10" fabric squares to work with, I considered a few different designs that would show off this beautiful fabric. I settled on Square-in-a-Square blocks using Quarter Square Triangles for the center.

Then I remembered the cool ruler I used for my very first Island Batik Ambassador Challenge...the Square Squared ruler from Studio180 Design! This is the Large Square Squared ruler, used for finished block sizes from 1" to 12":

Large Squared Square Ruler from Studio 180 Design

The ruler comes in two parts. The first part is used to square up the center block. The second part is used to center and square up the block once the outer pieces are added:

I began by sorting the 10" fabric squares into sets of two contrasting fabrics. Next, I made Half Square Triangles:

Then made them into Quarter Square Triangles:

After sewing the background fabric onto the block centers, I used the Large Square Squared Ruler to center and trim them to size:

Trimming quilt block with Large Square Squared Ruler

For my piecing I used my favorite piecing duo, Aurifil 50 wt. thread in Dove Gray (#2600) and a Schmetz Microtex Needle in size 12. In the picture below, I am chain piecing the Half Square Triangles: