White Sands

My beach quilt White Sands is in the current issue of Australian Patchwork & Quilting (Vol 21 No 2) - but I had no idea it was going to be on the cover, so I was thrilled to see this!

I've been looking at it all day!

Here's the whole quilt:

I tried something a little different with the sand section on this one; it was pieced separately, then appliqued in place.

The one thing I'd change is to ensure the sandcastle was properly vertical - oops! It's only a small detail, but because I'm aware of it, it's the first thing I see every time!

I'm really pleased with the sun and they way I incorporated the pinker shades of the sunrise/sunset - I'll definitely do that again! I was also happy to be able to incorporate the fabric with the sun's rays below it

This section of the sky is a bit of fun - it's the perfect colour, but a closer look reveals palm trees, a moon and a sailboat in the batik print. Is the sand section an island, with more sea behind???

Above is a photo of my sewing area while I'm selecting fabrics. This is how it always looks at this stage of a beach quilt. I leave out and unfolded all the options until I've finished on that section, then I'll fold up the water prints and pull out all the sands.

Fabric selection is a major part of my beach quilts - below are a few photos which show what careful selection can achieve:

Even though they're not necessarily the same type of fish/coral, the red bits at the bottom of the fabric with the turtle help tie it to the pieces below.

The matching sections of green seaweed in these two fabrics make the join practically seamless.

The orange fishtail on the bottom fabric gives the similarly-coloured fish in the upper print a comically long nose - but helps blend them together anyway!

The pink and red coral on either side of this fish link the three fabrics together.

I quilt closely around the larger creatures for a few reasons - partly to maintain even quilting across the quilt, and partly to emphasise them. Thread matching the water blends well and has the added advantage that it can be done without a thread-break if you let the water quilting go close enough to just take a 'detour' around the creature!