Waving

I made the decision a while back that I would make quilts for James and Eleanor's first school teachers (assuming I felt it warranted) but after that it would have to stop. James was lucky to have a wonderful teacher last year, and we made her a quilt. Eleanor has also had a terrific teacher to start off her schooling this year, and I knew she needed something special as well.

I decided very close to the end of the school year that I wasn't satisfied with the quilt I'd been working on, and started this one. It incorporates her teacher's two favourite colours - tangerine and turquoise, and we already knew she loves the beach. Fortunately, she also seemed to love the quilt when we gave it to her on the last day! Not only is she an artist herself, but her mother happens to quilt, so she really appreciated the time and skill involved.

One of the comments I received after blogging the first stage of the quilt was that a white background/sky would allow the wave to stand out best - but unfortunately I was already well on the way to piecing the sky from a range of sky prints by that stage. Because the reader was right. Although the colours contrast better in person, the wave does tend to blend into the sky. With the benefit of hindsight, I'd've used a solid sky-blue. Oh, well!

I struggled to find a full gradient of fabrics for the sun, and ended up using my new-found love of fabric painting to get the last 2 colours right. Unfortunately I left the lighter one too light, but it's still better than the original, so I'm on the right track.

I quilted feathers over the break of the wave to accentuate it a little, then filled the background with my current favourite - swirls. I used several shades of tangerine and yellow over the sun to help blend the shades further and a soft grey on the sky in the hope that would further differentiate the sky form the wave. I think it helped.

The wave was quilted in sets of wavy lines, into which I managed to work a change of direction to make the lines flow with the wave. I had originally planned to fill the gaps between the wavy lines, but in the end I felt leaving them empty created better effect, and created better distinction between wave and sky. I used about 4 different shades of turquoise (tending towards green, again for better differentiation) on the wave to blend with the fabrics.

This was the first quilt I photographed using the foam boards. While this was done very quickly (I hadn't yet marked even a large grid to help keep it square) it worked well, although I do need to work out the best location to use them. Pinning the quilt to the boards is tricky when more than one board is involved, and it's no faster than thedouble-sided tape, but there's no wastage - the pins and boards are ready to use again next time.