Sail away quilt

Time to share a finish this week, which always deserves a woo hoo in this house. This quilt has been while in the making, although the pattern is pretty simple and if you are looking for a fun and straightforward way to use a jelly roll I would suggest you give this a try, as it needs minimal instructions and you can make it up very much as you go along I think.

The jelly roll was a gift from my son a couple of summers back and I’d been really good and pieced the top pretty speedily and had it quilted by the lovely Cath at Cumbrian Longarm ( love that wave pattern), but after that is just sat. And sat… And sat! Abandoned without its binding, and not for particularly reason except, well you know, the usual one? I just put off bindings! It’s not that I don’t enjoy this part of the process, because I really do as you watch the quilt transform in front of your eyes with every stitch. It’s just that piecing is always the most fun part isn’t it, and I was itching to crack on with other projects. 

But hey, here we are with a finish and I thought it deserved an extra special photo shoot out in the wild so thanks to my chum Craig  and his  cute little yacht named Inca , we were able to show off this nod to the nautical world on a  stunning summers evening on Loch Earn. We sneaked in a wonderful couple of sailing too so all round it was a win win situation.

If you’d like to have a go at this quilt design it simply uses one jelly roll and for this size quilt (66” x72”) you will need 4 ½ yards of contrast fabric, cut into 6” squares.  I simply sewed the jelly roll into groups of three strips at a time and then cut these into 6” lengths.

These squares were then put together with the white background squares, right sides facing, and made into large Half Square Triangles. These were then just randomly sewn in rows and hey presto one fun super quick quilt. (If you are a beginner and would like a bit more detail on this do feel free to drop me a message and I can give you some fuller instructions that will help you along.)

This fabric is called Ahoy me Hearties by the way, designed by Janet Clare for Moda.

Just for a little pop I added a red contrast block as nothing shouts nautical to me more than a bit of red white and blue, and the final touch was the red binding.  All in all, a fun project and a quilt that in think we will use and use.

who doesn’t love a racoon in a sailor scarf ?

Now, where’s the next finish going to come from?