Meet Island Batik Ambassador Gail Sheppard!
We are excited to introduce our 2020 Island Batik Brand Ambassador Gail Sheppard!
Owner of Quilting Gail, Gail hails from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is a lover of everything scrappy! She was 17 when she made her first quilt and has been sewing on and off since 1983. In 2005, she bought a “good” sewing machine and has been making several quilts a year since then!
more of a traditional quilter, she is exploring modern quilting. Last year’s Island Batik Ambassador challenge, “Make it Modern”, forced her to venture away from the traditional!
Quilt was made for the May 2019 Island Batik Ambassador challenge – Make It Modern with Hobbs. To make the quilt, Gail was inspired by the Tree of Life relief by architect Alfred Preis in the Pearl Harbor USS Arizona Memorial. To make the quilt, Gail used Island Batik Stash Builders, Aurifil thread and batting by Hobbs Quilt Batting. To see the full post, click here: https://quiltinggail.wordpress.com/2019/05/16/make-it-modern-with-hobbs.
While quilting is mostly a hobby for Gail, she enjoys teaching and doing trunk shows, too!
When it comes to choosing colors, she just looks at the options she has to see what goes together. Gail often does “co-ordinated” scrappy quilts: if she is making a “coordinated” scrappy blue quilt, as long as the fabric has blue in it, it can become one of the fabrics. However, with Island Batik’s wonderful lines of fabric, a lot of the coordinating of colours is already done for Gail and they are always perfect!
Stars On Ice, made for the 2019 April Island Batik Ambassador challenge – Vintage Reimagined. Gail’s quilt features Island Batik Icicle collection, designed for Tammy Silvers of Tamarinis by Kathy Engle. To make Stars On Ice, Gail also used AccuQuilt dies, Aurifil thread and batting by Hobbs Quilt Batting. To see the full post, click here: https://quiltinggail.com/2019/03/21/stars-on-ice-vintage-reimagined.
When we asked Gail about her favorite techniques, she mentioned chain piecing and using leaders and enders, working on at least 2 projects at a time. Her favourite rulers are Tri-Recs rulers, used to make unique star points. Gail is looking forward to Island Batik’s 2020 challenges and learning more techniques with Deb Tucker’s Studio 180 Design‘s rulers and various AccuQuilt dies. She enjoys doing all her own quilting on her domestic sewing machine.
Make sure to follow Gail on social media to see all her amazing projects:
Facebook: Quilting Gail
Instagram: @quiltinggail
Blog: https://quiltinggail.com
Island Batik page: 2020 Island Batik Ambassadors