Friday 24 June 2016

Seashells on the Seashore - WIP

My beach quilt is in its final phase - quilting. I had the process planned from the very beginning and expected it to be tedious, but it is turning out harder than I thought, so I'm taking a little break to stand back and consider.

The idea is to make the sea creatures pop up from the surface, so I used the trapunto technique: first added a layer of batting to the top and stitched around the edges in the FMQ mode, then trimmed the excess batting around the appliqué shapes very carefully with sharp little scissors (though I did snip a couple of stitching threads in the process, I managed not to cut the top fabric...phewww).

trapunto

I also added a few quilting lines on shells and turtles to add more interest to the large shapes.

Shells applique and trapunto

Turtles applique and trapunto

Then I put together the sandwich with really fun fabric I chose for the back, basted and prepared to quilt. The obvious choice of quilting design was pebbles, but I also decided to strew around some seashells. Here is a little sample I made to try it out:

Free motion quilting pebbles and shells

The hard thing with trapunto is that you have to stitch around the appliqué shapes yet again, at the same time trying to keep the pebbles looking natural in the small spaces between tentacles, legs and tails )))

Here is how it's going at the moment:

quilting pebbles and shells

quilting pebbles and shells

quilting pebbles and shells

quilting pebbles and shells

Not perfect, but thanks to the thread color which blends with the darkest spots in the background, the mistakes are less obvious than in the sampler above ;))

Linking up with Off the Wall Friday and Free Motion Mavericks - and off to do some cutting and piecing to relax))


6 comments:

  1. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished piece!

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  2. Wow! What a great and unique quilt! I haven't done any trapunto for ages; you make me want to do it again. Beautiful quilting and I love your sample!

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  3. Hello Olena,

    What a wonderful colourful project! I love the combination of appliqué and free motion quilting, and know from experience that it always takes far longer than anticipated. The pebbles and shells free motion quilting is beautiful!

    Thank you for linking up with Free Motion Mavericks - your quilt is this week's featured project, and you are the first person to link up from Ireland!

    Love, Muv

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  4. Lovely quilt! Wonderful job you did on all of it.

    ReplyDelete

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