Ocean #1 Part 3

Last one, I promise!  It took me 3 work sessions over 2 weeks to complete, so it was easiest to blog that way.

So, my plan was to couch an off white colored yarn over the raw edges of the fabric.  I was thinking of foam on the waves.  I tried it and discovered not only was it a huge pain to do but that I didn't like the way it looked.  Back to the drawing board or the thread tub as it were.  I had a lovely pale blue thread, that I had used for some or another past project, lurking in my thread collection that turned out to be just right.  I totally failed to photograph this part of the process, so you'll just have to take my word that the couched yarn looked awful!

After wrestling a large box down from a top shelf in the garage I located my quilt batting.  Then it was off to my closet (home of my fabric stash) to locate a suitable backing fabric.  I found a left over chunk of blue fabric from one of the crib sheet sets I (ahem, my wonderful mom) sewed when Alric was a baby and I needed one more sheet.  I hate basting with thread and avoid it like the plague, so I tracked down my box of industrial size safety pins and went to work.

I don't think it's going anywhere!

Then I tried my hand at some satin stitching to cover up the seams.   I was really pleased at the way it turned out!  It only took me about half of the beach to figure it out.  I did have to go back and do a little touch up on that section, but you can't tell by looking at it!

Satin stitching done

Then, it was on to quilting.  I don't mind quilting so much, but I'm really out of practice.  I got out my handy dandy disappearing ink pen and drew all over the top of  it.  The beach was easy, but I was at a loss with what to do with the sky.  Since I echoed the line of the beach with the quilting I decided to go with a similar idea for the sky.   I opted to leave the waves themselves unquilted, because I thought it would distract rather than enhance the design.

Quilted!

Then I had to decided what color and how to bind it.  So, I wandered off to the bathroom, which is the eventual home of this quilt, looking for inspiration.  It is going to hang above a blue and brown striped towel.  I settled on dark brown for the binding and found a nice fat quarter in my stash.  Now, I will admit, I don't really care for binding.  And there is no way I am doing any part of it by hand.  Uhh-uh!

Liking the color

But of course, my quilt was slightly larger than my fabric, which meant I would have a seam in my binding.  Oh the horror!  I decided to actually try to put on a binding properly, instead of my odd method of sides then top and bottom.  So I made myself a nice continuous binding with the seams all diagonal and everything.  Of course I cut it a little too narrow but it all worked out ok in the end.  I sew it to the back through all the layers then pull it over the front and top stitch.  I used this wonderful tutorial:  http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2011/11/one-way-to-machine-bind-quilt.html.  She did the back to front thing pretty much the same as how I had done it, but I had never done a continuous binding and felt like I need some moral support.

Putting on the binding

I'm not sure I did it quite right, but my tutorial said it takes a bit to get the hang of it.  I did feel very free with no pins jabbing me in the hand though!  In the end, my edges got a little wavy, so maybe next time I will pin it a little bit.  I can see how it would work really well on a larger quilt.

All done!  

It's kind of hard to see on the brown rug, so here it is hanging in it's new home!  It looks a little more wavy than it actually is in this picture.  All I had to hang it with was some wire that refused to straighten out.  I think it will look better once a get a nice straight dowel to hang it on.

Hanging in it's new home

I have to say I enjoyed this project. I think I like designing quilts and choosing fabric more than I actually like sewing, so making smaller projects like this will allow me to do more of what I really like to do.  And this is a method of applique I can actually do without going insane!   So far, people that have seen it say it looks like the ocean, which is what is is supposed to look like, so I guess I did something right.  I have a few more (hundred) ideas up my sleeve, so I'm sure I'll be up to something new pretty soon!