Making Waves

Starting with some easy posts, this is another of the quilts I finished in the last few months. This one you saw almost to completion through several progress posts in October and November while we were waiting for the arrival of my nephew. Well, he certainly made waves as he arrived!

Having set a precedent of making beach scene quilts for the nieces and nephews on my husband's side of the family, this time I drew inspiration from my sister-in-law's husband who surfs rather than sails.

The waves were pieced together as a single unit, then sewn onto the reef section of water below.

I had planned to machine applique the waves to the sky, but decided hand stitching it would give a far better finish, so set to and did it by hand. I rarely do anything but the finishing of my quilts by hand, mostly because it's time consuming, but sometimes it's worth the effort. For example, I would never consider machine binding my quilts because I don't think the quality of the finish is good enough.

I decided not to try and put a surfer into the quilt, so instead there's a seagull bobbing in the waves.

And there is a sunken surfboard hidden in the reef:

Up at the top you'll notice a plane in the sky; I'm collecting a few different options for adding more interest; so far I have kites, hot-air balloons and now planes.

Making Waves in now in use by Aidan - I'd much rather see my baby quilts get loved and used and repeatedly washed than saved in a cupboard as too pretty to use.