Friday 21 May 2010

Bloggers' Quilt Festival - Seaside

Welcome to the Spring 2010 Bloggers' Quilt Festival. Click on the link to check out the ever-growing list of quilts exhibited in this virtual festival, and to add yours!

The quilt I decided to enter is Seaside; one of my favourites. I have blogged about it before, so will try not to rehash what I said then too much!
Seaside was made for the birth of my first niece, and the design was born out of wanting something that would go with the Beach quilt I made as her parents' wedding gift (below):
I spend a lot of time searching for and collecting suitable sand, water, sky and reef fabrics for these quilts. Sand is the hardest to find. I have a couple I love, and will be sad when I run out of them.
In the centre scene shown above, I machine embroidered the red flag and the blue spade handle after they were covered by the pieces of fabric where the waves come onto the beach. I wish I'd bought more of that fabric, too!
This quilt was made just before I started adding comprehensive printed labels to the back of all my quilts.
Some detail of the reef. Again, this quilt was early in my FMQing days, and while I was adventurous at the time, the seaweed quilted in green is fairly simple.
Seaside was the first of several foundation-pieced beach scene quilts, and I have 2 more planned which I am about to start, but am still pondering new variations on the design. The second was made for my second niece (same family), and I called it Breakfast on the Beach (below):
The third is entitled Footsteps (below) and was made to be raffled to raise funds for James and Eleanor's child care centre at thye end of last year, and now lives with my quilting friend AJ. To see some of the design process of Footsteps, browse back through the posts before the linked one.
Thank you for visiting, I hope you'll come back. I love to read your comments, and do my best to reply to them all and visit your blog in return. For any new visitors here, on the right you'll see lists of quilts completed in recent years; these are all links and will take you to the main post about each quilt, most with plenty of photos.

Beach Scene quilt pattern available here now.

46 comments:

AJ said...

I like your sea quilts Emma...although mine is the best!! :P

Leah said...

They're all great - and I love how connected they are for a family :)

Red Pepper Quilts - Rita Hodge said...

Wonderful quilts - I cannot image how long it takes to source the huge variety of fabrics that you have used.

Rita

Joan said...

Emma - What FANTASTIC quilts!! i am gob-smacked!! You are a VERY talented person - as someone once said to me - THUNK - my jaw just dropped!! :)

Anne at Film and Thread said...

The quilts are amazing because they share something, but they are all unique and truly beautiful

Shawn said...

Your quilts are so wonderful, I love them! Looks like we sign our quilts the same way too,with embroidery. Your blog is great I will be back to visit. My grandmas name was Eleanor, from France..

A Garden of Threads said...

Wonderful quilts, the colors are very beauitful. Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful!! Those are so unusual and brilliant! I know some of the fabrics b/c I have them too, waiting for the right idea to pop into my head--you've given me lots to think about. :-)

Nancy Page said...

These are all winners. Wonderful, fantastic, gorgeous, unique guilts. Thank you for sharing. Loved seeing them.

Have a super great day.

Julie said...

Oh man, all of these are stunning!

Dresden Quilter said...

I love, love this quilt and the other ones you have made like it. You are so talented.

Carol said...

A wonderful set of quilts. Loved the different aspects.

Katie B said...

Oh, WOW! I can't even tell you how incredible your quilts are! Stunning.

Jocelyn said...

WOW this quilt is incredible. Love the whole effect. Beautifully done!

Michelle said...

Love the way the different sand prints look when you put them together!

Cynthia said...

Very cool! Love how bright and fun these quilts are!

Michelle said...

Simply stunning! These quilts make me feel happy.

Carla said...

You did an amazing job creating so many different looks with the same theme. Wow!!

Victoria Findlay Wolfe said...

beauty!!!

Army Wife Quilter said...

i like this style of quilt. I have never seen it before. wow.

marlene@ByTheSeam said...

Amazing quilts. A lot of thought and work went into those and it shows. You are very talented. I just hate it when I have a fabric that I love and then run out of it. But I guess there is always more to be found.

Laurel H. said...

Omg; these are beautiful.

Allie said...

I can't even think of a word for these - fabulous, stunning, exceptionally beautiful, none of them will do your quilts justice. I'm in AWE.

Anonymous said...

I really love all your sea themed quilts Emma. They are very inspirational. Breakfast on the beach is my fave!

Karen said...

I just love how you take wedges of fabric and get them to sit so harmoniously together. Then when they are finished they look so stunning.

Sara said...

That is the AWESOMEST (I know not a word!) quilt I have seen in a long time!! Stunning!! I'm sure you are very proud of this one!

quiltmom anna said...

What a great set of details you added to your beautiful sea quilts- I am sure one could look for a long time and see different things.
Thanks for sharing your wonderful work.

Regards from a Western Canadian Quilter,
Anna
http://quiltmomsjourney.blogspot.com/

Leslie said...

this is so amazing. i love the way the colors in the sand and water just blend together to make it look so stunning

BJ said...

Fabulous!

Kim said...

Your quilts all gorgeous! It makes me want to try my hand at making one.

Lonci said...

Amazing work, congratulations:)

Anonymous said...

Amazing! They are so detailed! I am sure that she loved it! THanks for sharing your art with us!

Mary P said...

Wow. This is beautiful. Actually, all of them are. It must be a lot of work selecting all the fabrics and designing the quilts.

Deborah said...

They are all beautiful!

Unknown said...

Beautiful quilts Emma! I love the details in your fabrics and piecing!

Anonymous said...

These are all pretty stunning! I'm super impressed with your skills. And more than a little jealous!

stitchinpenny said...

Fantastic

debbi d-w said...

Love the depth you get with your pieced water & skies - beautiful work, makes me want to run to the water!

Randi said...

Love the depth and. Great job.

SewCalGal said...

Excellent quilt. Wonderful design, use of fabrics and color. Whimsical yet enticing. Absolutely beautiful. You did a fantastic job.

SewCalGal
www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com

Angie said...

I am in awe looking at these pictures of your artwork -- This quilting style is creative. Thanks for sharing!!

Eileen said...

stunning!! what a wonderful talent you have and so great you shared it with us and how fortunate those who've received your bounty

mathea said...

The Seaside quilt is really stunnin, and the others are great as well. I love how you made them all related to each other.
I made a seaside quilt for my nephew some years ago, and I know all about gathering sea and sand fabrics and then hating to see them go :-)

Sandra said...

thanks for sharing all these original ocean quilts. I like how you've split the pictures into segments and then foundation pieced them and so they are sort of string quilts.
Come see my antique quilt entries
http://utahquiltappraiser.blogspot.com

http://starleyquilts.blogspot.com

Kathy said...

I love the way you are designing your beach quilts using so a crazy quilt method. It really works well for landscape and seascapes and allows you to blend the fabrics. It was a real treat to read more about your process.

Melissa said...

These are amazing quilts! I don't think I've ever seen anything like them. It's so fun to see how the pieces blend together to make the larger image.