Storm at Sea Blog Hop!

This month’s challenge, Storm at Sea, was a JOY to make! I love the Storm at Sea pattern and have made it many times in the past.

The first time I made it was about 1996 or 97. I made it as a going away gift for a paraprofessional in my classroom. It was purple, cream, salmon and had silver metallic lightening bolts in it. I only tell you all the colors because, unbeknownst to me, I only had black and white film in the camera.

See those sweet girls in the first picture? They turned out to be the mommas of the babies I gave these two quilts to:

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  Athena’s baby quilt, given 9 years ago

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  Cory’s baby quilt, given 15 years ago

To get ready for this month’s challenge I started early with a couple of newer patterns printed at 50%, a bunch of scraps, and ideas swirling around in my head.

Orange/blue pattern by Sylwia BK of I Love to Quilt,
Blue/green/purple/pink pattern is Ripple by 3 Dog Quilting

Both patterns were very fun to make at a smaller size. I love how the Ripple turned out–I think it looks like an eye with all it’s 45 degree angles. It willl make an amazing back of a quilted coat someday. The orange and blue is a little too big to be a placemat so I think it could be a nice table topper eventually.

When I opened the package to find out my color way, I completely fell in love with the Passion Petals collection. This collection was designed by Kathy Engle for Carol Moellers of Carol Moellers Designs and its colors are soft and BEAUTIFUL.

I was trying to figure out how I could incorporate one of the circular Storm at Sea patterns I had when I stopped by my quilter to drop off a quilt. Martha had been going through her patterns and had A Little Bit More Storm at Sea quilt pattern from Cindy Edgerton that she was looking to get rid of. PERFECT for one of my ideas. I snapped it up and ran home! These patterns are printed to a “meatier” tissue paper and are really fun to work with. The pattern instructions are just a page and really are simple and straightforward. Its original size is 52 1/2 by 52 1/2.

I decided to also quilt the Storm at Sea 3D pattern I had gotten from Sylwia BK of I Love to Quilt which is approximately 34 inches wide and place it in the center of the “flat” Storm at Sea pattern. So I got to work using the delicious “Butter” foundation fabric included with the collection color way.

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It turned out great except I didn’t use enough of the collection for my liking–to show off the delicate, soft pinks and purples in the rest of the collection. I also decided I needed more of the butter fabric and so I ordered five more yards thinking I could back it with the left over. Once it arrived I got busy working on the background Storm using A Little Bit More Storm at Sea pattern. I kept placing the circle as I worked on it–wondering if I was doing the right thing!

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I finally got all background pieced. I made a few decisions about color/pattern placement: I only had four different pinks and didn’t want to have too much of one pattern “clumping up” in the design. Also, with only two blue on blue fabrics I wanted to be purposeful on where they were placed. The purples were too lovely to make super scrappy so I deliberately pieced them on same blocks, hoping it would give the quilt a solid background to place the circle in so it would sort of “float” off. I reversed the butter fabric on the background Storm hoping that the dark purple on purple would define the sphere and have it lift off the background.

I have found on previous quilts the trick to something like this is to place the circle into the background rather than appliqué it. In order for the placement to work out, I needed to find the center of both the background Storm and the 3D Storm.

To make sure I placed the 3D block correctly I pinned north, south, east and west with longer pins to the background and then really pinned down the rest of the circle to the back of the background. The trick to dropping in a circle is that the cut away circle has to be 1/2″ SMALLER than the circle you are putting in. Well, these were monster pieces–a 34″ circle?!? What to do? Mark it with a pen? Chalk? How to do it?! I needed to cut UNDER the 3D Storm. For the sake of ease I decided to sew around the 3D block (using Schmetz 70/10 needle) with a different colored Auriful thread–bright red!

Once I had my red thread guide, I unpinned the two pieces, grabbed my small ruler and cut 1/2″ inside the red line.

I found my north, south, east and west pins and repinned the background to the 3D center. Sewing such a nice gentle curves on my Bernina 350 is just so easy–as long as I pin the heck out of it! Then, once placed, sewn and pressed I simply snipped out the red thread.

While I “drifted” a little on the placement–it’s not quite centered on west/east placement–I like how it turned out! After the bubble was placed, I finished up the border using, Opal, another great foundation fabric that was sent with this collection.

This made the quilt size stretch out to 52 1/2″ by 60 1/4″. Once the center was placed, the border added, I pieced the left over butter fabric I bought for the backing (perhaps five yards was a bit overkill!), grabbed my Hobbs Batting and raced off to my friend, Martha, who is my long arm quilter. She quilted a pattern that looked like a wild wind.

Students holding up my Storm at Sea.

Kodiak is an island where the storms at sea last for days, sometimes weeks! The storms are unforgiving, ferocious and wonderful. This will be a quilt I will give to a graduate next year–to remind them where they come from and how wild it can get here–to keep them warm wherever they go.

Don’t forget to enter the Island Batik Blog Hop giveaway!

Click on picture to take you to Rafflecopter entry form.

There are some beautiful quilts already posted and more to come! Jump into the hop and see what the other Ambassadors have made–I predict you will love them!

November 1:

Gail Sheppard, Quilting Gail 

Preeti Harris, Sew Preeti Quilts

November 2:

Pamela Boatright, Pamela Quilts

Jane Hauprich, Stitch by Stitch Custom Quilting

November 3:

Denise Looney, For the Love of Geese

Megan Best, Bestquilter

November 4:

Gail Renna, Quilt Haven Threads

Claudia Porter, Create with Claudia

November 5:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 1 and Giveaway

November 8:

Mania Hatzioannidi, Mania for Quilts

Jennifer Fulton, Inquiring Quilter

November 9:

Joanne Hart, Unicorn Harts

Connie Kauffman, Kauffman Designs

Jennifer Eubank, Archipelago Quilting

November 10:

Jennifer Thomas, Curlicue Creations

Janet Yamamoto, Whispers of Yore

November 11:

Emily Leachman, The Darling Dogwood

Maryellen McAuliffe, Mary Mack Made Mine

November 12:

Blog Hop Round-Up Week 2 and Giveaway

November 15:

Elizabeth DeCroos, Epida Studio

Andi Stanfield, True Blue Quilts

November 16:

Brianna Roberts, Sew Cute and Quirky

Michelle Roberts, Creative Blonde

November 17:

Sally Manke, Sally Manke Fiber Artist

Leah Malasky, Quilted Delights

Suzy Webster, Websterquilt Gail Sheppard, Quilting Gail 

November 18:

End of Blog Hop