This month's challenge is near and dear to the hearts of many of the Ambassadors...myself included. It's the challenge of using batiks in a quilt that is modern in design. If you've been a fan  of the blog, you know that I've been heading in that direction for a long time. It's just nice to have such talented company.I'm also thrilled that this time, I'm in the middle of the pack, instead of bringing up the end of the group. For once...it's probably not going to happen again.You may not have known that Island Batik makes a deep, rich, solid ink black batik. I do, and in working with this piece, which is a small 18" x 18", I thought it would give me a lot of negative space to play with.The good news is that it did give me plenty of room to play. The bad news is that in using black Aurifil...it's very tough to see in a photo.This piece is named Playtime, because that's exactly what I did...I played around with motifs and just relaxed and went with it.  I seem to have a love affair going with oddly shaped elongated drops...maybe they will one day evolve into proper paisleys, maybe not.I look at it this way - I no longer panic if someone asks me to quilt something. That's progress.The small flying geese are actually appliqued on - they came from another project and were scraps.  I had posed the question about a finish to the Ambassador's group, and this one came very close to being a traditional scrappy border. However, I found this pre-made Magic Binding strip made for another project and went with it.I did a write up on the Magic Binding technique in last week's blog - but the third time's a charm. When you are joining the edges of  binding - you know that part about leaving about a 10-12 inch tail?  It works much better if you follow directions.Today is National Sewing Machine Day, so here's a photo I took for Instagram of Playtime on the bed of my machine.So Inquiring minds want to know...are you a modern, contemporary or traditional quilter?