Sea Turtle Quilt

 

There’s a shop in San Diego area called Rosies Calico Cupboard that I have to stop at every time we go to San Diego. They have a great selection of all sorts of fabric genres and other quilting/sewing needs.  It’s a fun treasure hunt.

 

 

Three years ago, my daughter went into the shop with me and found a minky sea turtle fabric that she wanted me to make a quilt with. It was an interesting idea, and when I found it was on sale I couldn’t resist. 

 

 

Unfortunately for my daughter, the project got tabled and while I worked on a bunch of other projects. I hadn’t thought of it until I realized we were about to head to San Diego again! I quickly put together a pattern and figured out how many fabrics we’d need for the top. When we arrived the following year, I had my daughter come with me and pick out some batiks for the top. She narrowed it down to greens and purples and we’d use blues for the background. Perfect!

 

 

This time I started working on it right away and got the blocks finished up, but we needed one more fabric for sashing, so it was back to the shop again. This time I went alone and found the perfect sashing.

 

 

Now that all the blocks were finished, I was able to start piecing everything together. I was trying to mix things up in an unpredictable way to give it an organic feeling like you’d have in the ocean. I also had the turtles swimming in different angles for the same reason.

 

 

Once all of the sashing was complete, I added one more blue border and called the top good. Now I just needed to match it up with the backing we’d gotten all those years ago. It turned out the backing wasn’t quite big enough. I did the best job I could lining up with front with the back and then after quilting, I trimmed the whole thing down to the right size.

 

 

The binding was made with the same blue that’s bordering the top. I wanted to keep it subtle and really focus on the turtles. My daughter is thrilled with it. She especially loves the minky backing. I was worried about working with it but it wasn’t a problem at all.

 

 

My son liked what he saw and asked when I’d start his! I totally forgot I was going to make one or him too. Looks like it’s back to Rosies this year to get everything I need for his. The good thing is that I now know what’s needed and it should go together more smoothly. Here’s hoping!