"Water Ways"
You may have figured out that I finished this one and gave it to my friend, Ewa (pronounced - Eva).
When I gave it to her she had tears in her eyes.
She said she didn’t have any idea what I was going to do. I had asked her previously if she wanted a quilt and if so, what color. She did want one, of course.
She said her room was gray, so that would be best. We checked out the fabrics I had with boating or ships as a theme and put aside fabrics that had a lot of browns that didn’t seem to go with gray. Then she said, “Surprise me!” So I set about to do just that.
When she looked at it - she said she was, indeed, surprised.
I talked about the top a few days ago now - here. In case you didn’t read it.
I quilted it with swirls and curls again. I wanted to do waves of some kind, but really didn’t know how to quilt such a big quilt with waves.
I used the cat fabric in the sails to help commemorate Ewa’s work with the cat rescue that she helps.
I used the following fabrics in this quilt that my sis sells in the store as of this writing. I think if you click on the photo, it should take you to the fabric on the website.
I did make them two pillowcases of the large kind. I can’t say I was overly impressed by my work on them.
I ended up putting Velcro on the back to keep the flap down. If it needs another piece, Ewa can add it.
I’m not sure what their pillows are like - but ours are floppy so the overlapped part didn’t stay flapped very well without something to secure it. These are for the bigger bed pillows that are common here in Europe - about 24”x27”. I think a zipper would have worked better. However, I used up my best big pieces of fabric in making these so I couldn’t do them over.
The quilt roll:
I did want to incorporate small piecing of some kind because that is what Ewa really likes. But in order to use these fantastic boat/sailing fabrics, including lighthouses, I needed a pattern that would use bigger blocks.
There is no point in using boat fabrics if they are going to be cut up into very small pieces! But I used those small 9 patches as the cornerstones for that reason as well (because Ewa likes small pieces!) But for those 9 patches I mostly used scraps which were created from fussy cutting the fabrics for the snowball blocks.
I did use all blues in the sky - either light or clouds or lightning. I actually had fun with choosing those fabrics. I also used what more or less looked like or reminded me of water for the water.
I chose to make the sailboats head in two directions - all going in one direction on each line.
I had played around with making half of the boats going one way and the others go the other way all on one line. I couldn’t decide whether the boats should be heading away from the center or towards the center. In the end,
I decided that I actually preferred it how I did it. The program I use, Electric Quilt, lets you check out how it is going to look.
I hope someone can use it.
It’s actually pretty easy to make! The snowball blocks are quite easy and the sailboat blocks aren’t difficult - just took a bit more time. But the variety is what makes them fun to do!
I did find some BIG sailboat fabric here in Poland and bought some a while ago. I put it on the back. I didn’t have enough, so I had to make it stretch with those blue strips.
I wish I could find the producer of that sailing fabric here so I could buy it wholesale. :)
Sadly there are no names on the selvages of the Polish fabrics.
So there you are - this is the end of the Water Ways quilt saga. I hope this little bit of my life’s drama, such as it is, is helping keeping you entertained and inspired.
Have a great day wherever you are reading this!
Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store here!
Here’s one of the beauties we have! Maybe you can dream of days at the beach as well!
