Bucky McFinn

It's pretty rare where I find a book and I like every single quilt in it.  I think you probably can relate there, I can't be the only one!  Usually I will like a couple of things in it, but I also usually see a few stinkers.

Well, I have found one of those rare books in which I like every single quilt in the book.  But...it just so happens to be a kid's quilt book.

Animal Parade By Cheri Leffler is full of really cute quilts targeted to kids, but I fell in love with the sea life quilt in there.  I made it for no other reason than I liked the quilt and that we had the perfect, silly sea fabric to go with.

Most of you have seen this hanging in the shop already over the past few months, but I'm just now getting around to posting it on here...

I call the quilt Bucky McFinn because if you look at the shark in the border, he has a CRAZY overbite.  Mom and I named him Bucky McFinn - no one's afraid of him because he can only bite himself!

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).