Monday, April 28, 2014

Shiver me Timbers

Ahoy me hearties!

Avast ye, weigh anchor, and hoist the mizzens.

Yo-ho-yo-ho a pirates life fer...

There is more, trust me.  Just type how to talk like a pirate and more info and pirate phrases than you ever wanted to know is at your finger tips.  I will try and restrain myself as much as possible.

But blow me down, this is my oldest's pirate quilt and I'm pleased as punch with it.  The colors are girly but the prints are not overly so.   Mostly just geometric or batiks.  The fabric is joyful and striking and I love the old timey atlas panels.  Plus, how fun are narwhals, mermaids and girl pirates?

This is one of the most balanced quilts I have made.  See, I am learning as I go and getting better (I hope) with every quilt I make.  There's quite a lot of white space to guide the eyes from image to image and an equal amount of prints to solids.  Every square on square block has a print and a solid, but the solids are always on the bottom to keep the eye moving in the right direction.  I used 3 different shades of solid purple to border the ship prints.  It makes it a little more interesting.  And, just look how cute it looks in her room with the lavender walls and wrought iron bed.  Gasp.  Love.

I designed this to have the three atlas panels going straight down the middle with fun blocks surrounding them.  The atlas panels are my favorite part of this quilt and it's perfect because My Oldest loves maps.  She will play with Google map and go all over the world, exploring.  We even tried the African Sahara....didn't work so well.

I was able to use a bunch of my gorgeous scraps for the half square triangles in the square in square blocks which I found to be tons of fun and a ginormous mess because I had to practically rip all my fabric off the shelves to look at it and then leave it in a heap while I sewed.  No time to tidy,  I'm crafting here.  The Mister practically died every time he looked in my room.

Then just don't look in when you're down here.

But, I have to walk past your dang blasted, pig sty of a craft room to get to my office.

Pshaw!  You can work at the kitchen table.  Let's be reasonable,  I cannot work like this!!!  I need to be free to create in chaos.  You have to love me for who I am.  Messy craft rooms/sweat pants and all.

Sigh.  Can you at least close the door?

Deal!

I loved mixing and matching my scrap prints to the solids I was using: pink, light blue and purple.  The dimensions for this quilt were actually designed around the square in square blocks.  Once I got the dimensions worked out for those, I figured everything else out from there.

This quilt took quite a long time to make.  1- Because the square in square blocks were quite time consuming because of all the bitty half square triangles and lots of cutting was involved.  2- I took my sweet time about it.  I had other things going on and so would get back to this one WHEN I GET TO IT!  (I may have gotten pestered a time or two about getting a move on)  3-  It's BIG with a lot of blocks.  Things like this take time.  4-  I hand quilted it, which I really enjoyed.  The fabric is so soft and pretty that I was glad I really got to play with it a lot.

I used the fabric collection: Out to Sea by Michael Miller

It's still available and if you are interested in how to make this quilt, shoot me a comment and I'll get back to you with destructions.

Thanks for stopping by ye bilge rats.  Sorry.  I don't really think you're bilge rats.  Love ya.

Heather

10 comments:

  1. Heather this is just amazing! Girly pirate, how cool! You hand quilted it?? You're a super hero!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Turned out great! And hey you got it done... It would still be sitting there if it were me. Do you ever enter in quilt competitions? Like the State Fair?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Woooaahh! I can't believe you had stitched this, first of all. When did you start this, when you were in high school?? It's simply beautiful. I'm a mapaholic, myself. I could just sit and read maps all day. I had a job doing that once upon a time, for a trucking company, tracking trucker's mileage, but that was when I realized my love for maps, just like your little one. Surely she will cherish this FOREVER!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've hand quilted and used a machine. I much prefer the hand quilting too. And you never get over the love of what you've made because you put so much into it. My oldest still loves the one I hand quilted him years ago and he's got it as a cherished item in his home (though I don't think his wife will ever let him use it since it's a young boy pattern). ;)

    Your quilt is amazing, gorgeous, awesome, terrific, fantastic, and it totally rocks!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I feel like a lazy bilge rat looking at all the work you've put into this. Too cool and totally beautiful, matey! Drink up to your talents...yo ho...a pirate I am not but an amazing quilter you are!! Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I admire so much that a) you could do that - b) you actually put so much thought into creating the pattern from scratch... And I was so proud of myself for hemming my curtains...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hehehe...I'm glad I'm not the only one who says "destructions." :P I LOVE the quilt. I cannot believe you hand-quilted it. I think I'd rather walk the plank.

    You deserve to be immortalized as a Figurehead on the prow of a ship. Yep.

    -andi

    ReplyDelete
  8. WOW. That is beautiful. I love the fabrics. I'm going to have to go and search for some of that. I love that your argument to your husband is that you need to be free to create in chaos...don't we all my friend, don't we all :).

    Oh...guess who bough some buttermilk? I'll be making some biscuits this week!

    ReplyDelete
  9. love the colors and the large world maps!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wow! That's amazing! Totally gorgeous. I would look up how to say that in pirate talk but I'm thinking pirates probably never say totally gorgeous! I think my favorite part is the map fabric, though I do like the little mermaids too. You rock my friend!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. Love ya! XOXOXO

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...