WIP Wednesday: Sea Worlds

Sea life is the name of the game lately.  This is the second sea themed quilt I've worked on this year (I'll post about the other one later).

Unlike the first one, this one has given me fits since the get go.  I have never simultaneously loved and hated a quilt so much.

I am using a panel from Robert Kaufman, and boy is it beautiful.

 My favorite block, but the others are just as pretty.

So I used the book "Panel Play" to work with this, and that book is awesome - lots of great ideas, and lots of math...which, math is NOT my strong suit.  I'll get to that.  GROAN.

After cutting the panel apart, I realized just HOW CROOKED the thing was.  I actually had to enlist my mom's help with some tailoring skills to get these suckers straightened out.  

Squidge, pin, squidge, pin

After much squidging and much pinning, it came out as square as it was going to. 

 

Oooh bubbles.

So I had collected a bunch of coordinating colors, which I was (and still am) pretty excited about - blues, turquoises, teals, greens, golds, coppers and beiges.  Not my usual brights, but worth it so far

Wee!

But here was the issue.  Panel Play showed a variation of this panel done up and it was so, so cool.  But the panel pieces cut down to a much odder size than mine did, and so I knew the math would start to vary from the book.  So I went in, did my numbers, and "just KNEW" that the borders wouldn't fit right.  I was so excited when the side borders fit exactly.  I love it when my math is wrong to my advantage!

Too long here...

IT'S GOING TO FIIIIT!

So I started in on the top and bottom borders, feeling pretty damn spry and confident about how well it was working out.  I did have to make a couple more blue/green themed blocks, but whatever, it was all going swimmingly...swimmingly...sea worlds...ha.

But I should know better than to get confident.  

Oh hey top row, you are WAY too long.  If anyone heard a chain of random swears in the night on Monday....that was me getting my ass swiftly kicked by the karma gods of quilting.

So I'm all set to rip out, resew, and squidge, pin, squidge, pin.  I'll be taking out one 6" block set and resewing.  It'll still be a little big, but I'll be able to fudge it in there.  I was just hoping to be done.  But it will be done this week and I can't wait to see the whole thing together!  I have to say...this one I'm going to have to keep (besides, John likes it...which means once it's done it won't leave his sight lol).

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Halloween...

It's August and if you know me you know this is the beginning of my favorite time of year...Halloween merch is beginning to hit the stores and I am one happy camper. 

That, and it's time to get samples done for the shop for fall and Halloween.

We got a few super cute panels in, and I've finally finished the quilting on both.  One is a 13 Days of Halloween "Advent" calendar, and the other is just a cute panel....it'll be obvious as to which is which...or should I say, witch is witch!  Haha! 

This one is the Thirteen Days of Halloween...not sure what the line is called offhand.  But I did my own quilting and embellishing here, and in the second picture you can see Mom creeping around and  photobombing my picture of the display. 

And this one...I call this one "Oogie Boogie" because the pumpkins and the writing reminded me of Oogie from Nightmare Before Christmas...no idea why!  But I added ghosts made from Angelina Fiber (very fun stuff to use) and did my own quilting here too.