A Whale of a Time - Work in Progress

A few months back I posted about some gorgeous fabric from a range here called Marine Too by Dan Stiles for Birch Fabrics which also happens to be 100% certified organic premium quilting weight cotton.

I was totally in love with this fabric when I first saw it that it spend a number of months in my display cabinet and become one of those fabrics that we just look at and don't want to cut up !!

Well guess what I did cut it up well just a little. A lot of this fabric features very large prints so I was looking for a quilt pattern that would utilise large blocks that would feature the fabric rather than distract from it.

This is where I want to mention the fabulous Jera from Quilting in the Rain. Like me she has young children and like me only gets to sew when they are sleeping for that few hours during the day or at night. Often I find lots of piecing and large quilts difficult to complete as I am always starting and stopping and as a result I lose my momentum and sometimes my interest. Well not anymore !!

Her fabulous book Quilt as You Go Made modern is a fresh approach to quilting for us busy people and features some great patterns that make putting a quilt together any size a quick and easy process. The blocks are simple and effective.

Making up a block at a time and quilting it gave me a sense of completion every step along the way and the sewing together was simple and easy. The pattern I used for my quilt was called "Rainy Days". I found that I could keep my large prints features and just added some of my white jelly rolls strips I'd had lying around for a while.

I'm loving this quilt so far and all I need to do is back with some super cute whales from the collection and I think some bright red binding too.

If you want some simple and fun quilts to make I really recommend you purchase this book as there wasn't one project in the book I didn't want to try!!

 

Linking up at Freshly Pieced for WiP Wednesday! 

Till next time....happy sewing....

 

xx Jenny



Sunday Stash: Marine Too

Having little boys I just couldn't go past this fabric when I first saw it. The range is called Marine Too by Dan Stiles for Birch fabrics. It is 100% certified organic premium quilting weight cotton and lovely and soft to touch.

There are 10 fabrics in the range which showcases both small and large (actually very large) prints.

 

Both the turtles and the whales are super cute with little love hearts between them.

There are also some prints with submarines, anchors, crabs, ships and birds. I'm loving the brightness of these prints they just scream fun and happy to me!

 

I haven't got any specific fabric in mind for these just yet but as the prints are quite large I'm thinking some simple large strips or perhaps bordered squares. I also bought some extra yardage of the whales which I can't wait to use as backing.

 

Till next time....happy sewing....

 

xx Jenny