"Depth," "Window Web," and "In Search of the Yellow Submarine" for the Seaside Summer Blog Hop!

"Depth," 24" x 24", made by Pam Geisel, Aug. 2016

Welcome to the "Wind and Sea" collection in the Island Batik Ambassador's "Seaside Summer" Blog Hop!

We were challenged to use at least 8 of the fabrics in the collection and create a piece that was at least 24" x 24". Bonus points if it fit the theme of "Seaside Summer." (Just kidding, there aren't any points given.)

You might recognize some of these fabrics, as I used four of them for the "Eiffel Tower" I made for the "Playful Piecing" challenge back in May.

As I thought about the theme of Seaside Summer and looked at the fabrics, an image popped into my head, the way that water looks from below, or how it looks with the sunlight reflecting off the top of it. This wasn't something that I wanted to recreate literally, but I wanted to suggest that image.

I was drawn to the five blue/green fabrics and wanted to use them in long strips. I needed to include three more fabrics. I thought the lime would make a nice pop.

The next morning we went out for breakfast and I notice the images on my husband's shirt. There are pinwheels there, but what I was really drawn to was the "x" shape with the square in the middle. I could use the blue strips to make the overall "x" shape and use two other fabrics to make the center block!

Now that I had my idea, I was ready to begin!

I did a little math to figure out that I needed to sew three sets of strips (the five blue/greens and the one thin lime strip). Above are two of the three sets of strips waiting to be sewn together.

The triangle template kind of looks like a sailboat on the water, doesn't it?

I made a card stock template of my triangle then cut three triangles from each of the three sets of stripes. I like this technique for making triangles from strips but there is a bit of waste. I ended up with 9 triangles and I only needed 8 so there would be one leftover. There were also leftover half-triangle pieces from the left and right sides. (Don't worry, I didn't throw them away, keep reading.)

The 8 triangles waiting to be sewn together as squares. After they were sewn I trimmed 4" off the left and top sides so that the middle seam would no longer be in the center. This provided some more leftover pieces.

Next I sewed the dark purple borders around my purple square, folded the edges under. Unlike my inspiration image, I decided to turn it 45 degrees and lined the points up with the seams, then I machine appliqued it to the background.

I quilted with Superior Thread’s Fantastico #5156 that is variegated green/blue/purple, quilting 1/4" outside of the seams and going into the purple diamond. I thought it needed just a little bit more, so I added some lime green yarn (I've used this yarn on a lot of projects) inside the purple diamond where the two purples meet. I did a knife-edge facing for the binding.

What about the leftover pieces?

I had one piece that was large enough to cover a 6" x 6" canvas, so in keeping with the "Seaside Summer" theme I made this little piece:

"In Search of the Yellow Submarine." 6" x 6" on canvas, by Pam Geisel, Aug. 2016

The submarine was made with the yellow fabric from the Sea Salt Sandy collection and is a fused raw-edged applique to the background. Yarn was couched (sewn on top) to create the sea plants and six brown buttons (stacked in twos) were sewn on for the porthole windows.

And I had enough long, thin pieces to make a dozen bookmarks. And one fabric card (not shown).

Then there were several smaller pieces so I just kept sewing them together until I had nine 4" squares and I used eight of them to make this piece:

"Window Web," 17" x 17", made by Pam Geisel, Aug. 2016

Instead of using all nine squares I arranged eight of them around another piece of fabric from the "Wind and Sea" collection. I pieced the lime green as sashing and an inner border, then used one of the original blues for a border.

I quilted lines on a 45 degree angle creating large diamond shapes then couched more of that lime green yarn where the borders meet. Again I used a knife-edge facing for the binding.

A Seaside Snack:

Did you know that Goldfish crackers now makes pretzels that are shaped like goldfish? That seemed like the perfect thing to have with peanuts and raisins for a seaside snack. (And you can always add some chocolate chips or M-n-Ms!)

More about Depth, Window Web, and In Search of the Yellow Submarine