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!

 

Christmas Lights Quilt

 This top actually dates back to my covid lockdown series, not because it’s when I started it but because it is made of the scraps from a quilt made during that time.

 

 

Back in 2022 I made the Rainbow Cubic Quilt with this beautiful rainbow pack I’d gotten in a raffle.  I was also able to complete a table runner with some of the scraps… and yet I still had more. So what to do with those…

 

 

After sitting on the shelf for a while I finally decided something had to be done with them. Everything was sewn together, I just didn’t know what to do with them. It happened to be Christmas time and I thought they kind of remind me of Christmas lights. Inspiration hits.

 

 

I got to work creating the hexagons and then laid them out randomly so they’d be all spread out among the grey hexagons. I added the white to spread them out, but in hindsight I think I added a little too much white. 

 

 

I got all of the rows together and felt like it really didn’t need a border; it was already a pretty modern-style quilt. I needed a backing though, and found one on my annual trip to Rosies in San Diego. It was the oversized backing fabric, which meant less piecework to get it to the right size.

 

 

My goal with the quilting was to make sure everything had good texture on it, but I felt like there was no 

need for a particular pattern. So I went with a meander and kept it simple.

 

 

Once it was all done, I added my label and completed the binding with some of the backing fabric I still had left. All finished!

 

 

I took a step back and looked at my finished product and realized I accidentally switched the last row, so it’s not in step all of the other rows. Yikes! Oh well, I’ve heard the Amish believe nothing should be perfect so they purposely add flaws to the quilts. I’m sure that’s what this was. I purposeful mistake. It’s curious to see if others notice it.
 

Scrappy Pinwheel Quilt

What do you do with the scraps from a project? I always struggle with this when I use a technique that causes cut pieces that are already sewn together, making it a pre-sewn block. It’s like it’s meant to be in something. I just don’t always have the time or patience if the pieces get too small.

 

 

So, back in 2022 I made my Natural Beauty Garden LatticeQuilt. It turned out awesome, but had a lot of little half-square triangles that were already sewn together. I wasn’t sure if I should try to turn them into something or let them go. While I thought about it, I completed Natures LostFour-Patch quilt with the leftover 10” squares.

 

 

That project gave me time to think about how I wanted to deal with the small pieces. I was finally ready to get to work on this one. I decided it was worth it.  This one is the last of the trio with this set of fabric. I pulled out everything I had and started putting it all together.

 

 

I started with the small pieces that were the original leftovers and made them into pinwheels. Once they were made I had to figure out a plan for them. I had some black with a black floral pattern on it that I really wanted to use in a project, so I decided to use it here even though solid black was used in the pinwheels. It felt like a small enough difference that wasn’t too noticeable and added some character as well.

 

 

Once all the pinwheel blocks were completed, I used the leftover backing fabric to make the sashing. The large flowers are such a great pop of color. I used the black-on-black floral for the cornerstones as well.

 

 

For the backing, I had the blue version of the floral that was used in the sashing. The large print is excellent for a backing.

 

 

I used a basic meander quilting as this quilt was already busy enough, and then I put on my tag and the binding, which was more leftovers from previous projects. I was really working hard to finish up all the fabric.

 

 

I love how this one turned out. It would be a fun baby quilt with a more modern and vibrant feel, or a great sofa blanket that adds color to the room. The colors in the fabric are just so much fun! I’m really glad I decided to use up the small pieces I had left. I feel like I really used every part of the layer cake pack that started all this. And yes, I still have a bit of fabric left but it’s minimal enough that I can save it for a scrappy project. Phew!