Children of the Sea Back Completed

Children of the Sea Back

Today I finished the back for Children of the Sea.  On the front side you have the Ocean and some of it's wonderful inhabitants, and then the back side is tropical floral, it is in some ways brighter than the front, and I like that. There is certainly a vibrancy to the backing don't you agree?  The back picks up all the blues, purples, pinks, and teals without repeating them and adds something more, okay a whole lot more.  I added one of the pictures of the front that you've seen before just in case you wanted a reminder.  This quilt certainly gets points for being one of my more difficult to photograph!

Children of the Sea Front

DD's Lunch

On a different note below is a picture of DD's lunch. I know wheat bread would have made the meal a better one but DH has been doing much of our grocery shopping lately, and still it's none to shabby for a nearly 6 year old.  She selected everything about it herself.  I am very blessed that she isn't a picky child.  Now would you believe she didn't want salad dressing?  Nope she likes a dash of balsamic vinegar - if you can believe that.  Granted she wasn't thrilled with the small portion where the vinegar ran to the corner of the bread.  This happened because she ate her salad first, I know what a shock!  And for the record I don't blame her one bit about the vinegar on her sandwich, she let it go after I tore that bit of bread off and set it aside.

Looking at the picture brings up a question.  How do you like your sandwiches?  Whole, cut in half up the middle to make two rectangles or two triangles, or quartered?  I never cut my own sandwich anymore but I will cut a cheeseburger into quarters; as it seems to result in less of my toppings slipping off that way.  DD always wants squares, personally growing up I always wanted triangles.  Triangles were special cut by someone who put thought into cutting the sandwich and perhaps even asked how I wanted it cut.  Squares were the default.  Granted I started making my own by the time I was going into 1st grade...  

Children of the Sea Top Finished

Hooray for my Children of the Sea Quilt top as this one joins the list of quilts waiting to experience the new frame.  I added the waves Thursday and Friday I finished stitching all the dolphins.  So at 70"x90" this top is waiting for me to find the perfect back.  Of course I went shopping today and plum forgot to look for a back for this beauty.

This time the quilt was proving to be very difficult to photograph.  So at the top you have an approximate over all.  In the middle you have a close up of my hand stitched dolphins, thank you Penny and Sue for your insights there.  And lastly is a look at my waves and how they come together on the side of the quilt.

I also kicked out all my mending, yes by actually fixing it if you were wondering and have started on my two Christmas Quilt-a-long BOM's, no real progress there yet, though I will admit I switched the medium fabric for the dark one because it made the cute frog flannel I selected really pop.

Waves for Children of the Sea

Yes, I said I'd get back to you tomorrow, but these curves are more challenging and time consuming than I'd thought as it's taken me since then to get to this point.  Currently I have the top, the bottom, and about 3/4ers of one of the sides done.  What do you think?  I'm also halfway done with my hand stitching on the dolphins - no photos of those as the ones I've just completed mostly look like the ones you already saw, just nine of those left to go.

Christmas Quilt-A-Long Year 2 June Dinner Calls

Well the good news is that I figured out what was wrong with the curvy strips I cut.  You see the directions I had didn't say wrong sides together or anything, it just said "stack", so I thought I was being oh so smart and cut them wrong sides together.  WRONG.  They both should have been "right side up".  So I've been working on dealing trying to save all that I've cut and I'm just starting to see the light at the end of trying to match and recut the random waves I'd already cut.  Here's the update picture.  Not sure if I'll be able to get back to them today or if I'll work on them some more tomorrow.

So for the record these are pieced curves (the next time I hint at that promise to yell at me) not appliqué and my strips are 120" long.  Oh yes, that's because I knew how hard it would be to match essentially random waves and since they had to be 90" why not make them a little longer to help with my future efforts on the sides?  Do you know what 120" does to your arms?  If you have ever done freemotion (at any size) you know, it makes them ache!  LOL.  The waves are looking pretty and I'm glad of that.  Hope everyone had a day full of stitches. Only the laughter and the quilting kinds of course!!!

Christmas Quilt-A-Long Year 2 June Lunch

Yesterday, I had worked myself up for so many days about what I would sew on our Christmas Quilt-a-long day that I went and put in some time on my Earth Turtles, as I couldn't stand it another day, I added two more to my collection.  That brings me up to four and as this will be a twin size quilt unlike it's own twin the full/queen Hawaiian Ocean Appliqué Quilt this one is already half way done!

So what was I to do today?  Work on the ocean wave border for Children of the Sea of course.  Not much to show there, as after at least an hour of ironing and a while of cutting curves; few minutes ago I found myself quite lost when I started to line up everything to sew and thought it best to take a time out for lunch.

DD has gotten into the swing of things and did a bit of artwork of her own on fabric.  Not bad for a first try, especially as I'm sure we've all tried to write on fabric for some reason at some point and know what a challenge it can be.  Just in case you're wondering I'm nearly certain the girl in purple is sticking her tongue out.  Hooray for the Christmas Spirit.

Happy Stitching!

I Stitched after all

Sorry about complaining like that yesterday.  I try very hard to hold my peace but on days like that sometimes my emotions get the best of me.  It's just to irksome to know what you want, to have all the fabrics, the thread, the idea, the concept, and your own body says "Nope not today!"

Things did simmer down in the late afternoon, and I started on my dolphins for the rings.  I have them all drawn, and have stitched the four corner dolphins.  Which are actually slightly larger as well as two tiny dolphins for the center small size circles.

I started on the first of the 14 that make up the other intermediary rings.  For my stitching I drew a dolphin, cut it out, and started with that as a paper template and cut it down or redrew it as needed.  I am using a thickness of four threads for the embroidery.  The thread is the 100 weight silk I used on the Dresden plates.  I might like to pick up a couple more colors of that in the future just to have on hand, it's nice to work with.

I'm a little nervous about the wavy curve border, even know in my mind I know exactly how to do it in reality I'm feeling timid.  I'm not certain if I'm going to start on that today or if I'm going to finish hand stitching the dolphins first.


Sunny has been a real lover lately, happy to curl up with whomever is willing to pet him.  When I saw this I knew I just had to have a picture.

Not a good day!

I'm so happy to tell you I've figured out the border for my Children of the Sea Quilt.  This will be a 9 inch border which will bring the quilt up to a 70"x90", a generous twin sized quilt.  I have 6 blue fabrics selected ranging from medium to light tones which I will cut gentle curves into and then piece them together in a loose artistic interpretation of the gentle movement of the ocean echoing the still waters in the panel.

I know exactly how I need to cut and sew the fabric, but I didn't sleep well last night and my leg is protesting my every thought.  I call this feeling the snake in my veins because I feel I have little control over my tongue much less how I'm feeling.  Right now it's akin to feeling like my blood is boiling.  While this pain is never welcome, I'm rather furious about it right now.  Why?  Because these curves are a new technique for me and I would never dare to quilt anything, much less a new technique feeling like this.  I pushed through it one single time when I first started quilting and then I hated everything I'd done while I'd been in pain so I had to rip it all out again.

So while I dearly want to get back to sewing, today is clearly becoming a forced day of rest.  It's times like these that I am reminded of my Snake and Meerkat Quilt.  Since starting that quilt my bad days have been less and less.   Wouldn't it be nice to pretend that when it's finished the pain will simply go away and stay away?

Children of the Sea Settles on a Size

Thank you for your border suggestions!  Penny suggested embroidered dolphins for the centers of the circles and Sue suggested quilting dolphins into the centers.  I love both of those ideas.  Not sure which one I'll go with; at this point I'm still thinking about it.  I honestly hadn't dreamed up either idea and will be torn to pick one over the other.  Perhaps I might even consider every other circle embroidered, and then a quilted one between?  It's a thought.

Here's what I have added over the past two days:  a purple batik that picks up a bit of pink from the inner border.  I have also taken the dolphin suggestions to heart and in anticipation I have added this dolphin batik.

Now the blue and purple floral fabric that you see in the bottom of the image is the backing.  I know how strange it is for me that I've already picked my backing fabric so soon.  I actually picked it as soon as I brought the panel into the sewing room.  It was as though they were destined to be together.  I'm planning on using that darker blue from the bias tape to make my binding.  At this point the quilt is 52 x 72 and I've decided it is destined to be twin bed size quilt.  That means just one or two more borders.  I considered the pink again for another small border but I'm not sure.  I almost want to use a lightener blue in maybe a pieced border?  You can tell how certain I am.  No worries though, this quilt has been quite the talker and I'm certain I will hear the answer in the next few days.

Second Bias Tape Added

Not sure what comes next, any thoughts?

Children of The Sea How about This?

What do you think?  Na I wouldn't want a quilt full of pins either.  That's why I finished up the first go round of bias on this border.  A second bias will be added in the dark blue of the Killer Whales, not sure how I will move that one over the quilt.  Any suggestions?  A simple mirror around perhaps?

Making the bias reminded me why I hate my bias tape maker and everything that goes along with it.  One of the little dresses I made for DD's Kailey doll used the shortest piece of bias ever, a mere 9" or so, didn't even need to use a "maker" for it, this on the other hand was much less fun.  I figured I needed 120" and made about 130", my scrap piece is right around 15" so I couldn't have cut it much closer.

DD helped me hold the quilt, so let's take a look at our happy model.  Not bad for an afternoon of sewing.  I was concerned that I didn't have any thread to match so I went with white bobbin thread and it blended in just right.

Children of the Sea: Begins with Borders

Yesterday I started adding the borders to the Children of the Sea Panel.  The first border is a folded pink batik border, which I'd intended to fold out and onto the second border.  I didn't foresee the trouble this would cause with the mitered corners of the second border, so instead the border folds in on the panel.   

The next border is 8.5" because I'm going be adding  biased scallops on to it.  The colors will be pulled from two of the colors in the killer whales, a light periwinkle blue, and a darker rich almost navy blue.  Once those are complete we'll take a good long look and see what it wants next.