Seahorse With No Name

... Do you see what I did with the post title? A play on the song “Horse With No Name” ?!?  I guess if I  have to explain it then it isn’t that clever. But I’ve been working on seahorse-themed quilts for Quilts for Kids (QFK) all week, and that song has been going through my brain. 

In the fall of 2019 I found a great estate sale and bought a lot of fabric, which I talked about in this post.  After giving some to Cousin Kim and a lot to QFK, I only had 40” left of the cute seahorse border print, and I was determined to get two quilts out of it.  Since the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for March is green, the seahorses were a top priority! 

Here is the finished quilt, which measures 39x46”. I do want to back up, however, and talk a bit about its construction.  So, I had the two border panels allocated for this quilt, as well as a lot of Kona Iced Frappe - a lighter green than these pictures show -  for the background. After hunting my stash, I found a Kaffe Fassett print that looked like swirly ocean depths. 

I wasn’t sure how to do the seahorse. Sally has a great seahorse tutorial here, but I didn’t want to use a .75 inch grid. I found a picture of a cute pieced seahorse in a quilt online and just decided I could do my own. When I graphed it out, it was meant to be pieced with 1.5” squares (a finished 1” grid) with the seahorse measuring 6x12”. Unfortunately, I cut the batik fabric I was using into 2.5” strips by misssssssnake, and I was stuck moving forward with a seahorse that was going to measure 12x24”. In other words, a single seahorse was going to be the focal point instead of 3 smaller motifs swimming around. 

So what to do with all that space to the right of Mr. Seahorse? I pulled blue and green QFK scraps that looked “sea-worthy”, along with plenty from my own green scrap bin, and decided to make a color-wash type coral reef for him. I’ve never really done that before, but the scraps varied in color and intensity enough that they almost helped me place them. It still needed some pizzaz, however, so I took a cue from the border print and just drew a sea-weedy shape on some fusible web backing, applied it to the purple fabric and I had seaweed. Or is it coral? Whatever. Then I placed it in front of the reef and voila! 

Then came the quilting. Obviously it needed a watery effect, but I’d never done that before either. However, for better or worse I just forged ahead. While the results aren’t professional, I think they get the idea across.

The binding and backing fabric is a piece that Sally sent me a couple years ago. I’ve made several International Sisters blocks from it, and still had enough to back and bind the two seahorse quilts. Yes, two. Just hold your seahorses and I’ll show the other one momentarily. Anyway, here’s the fabric. I just totally love it and am sad that after backing these two quilts, there were only a few skinny strings left.

:

It sure was a fun project! I still had two more border panels and scraps for quilt #2. For this one, I had traced a cute seahorse image twice (using the last of my fusible; I guess a trip to JoAnn’s is in order) and they’re included in the second seahorse flimsy.

Seahorse Quilt #2 (needs a name) is now basted and ready for quilting, which will happen this weekend. After the first one, this is totally underwhelming, but it used up the border print, and lots of strips and scraps. Some kid will like it. 

And the pregnant Momcat I showed last week had her kittens. *cough*. I delivered them myself.

My chief mindless sewing for the week was making green string blocks. I knew I had a crap ton of green strings between my stash (I love green) and the gender-neutral green scraps from QFK. The pile I started with was huge (should’ve taken a picture), and I knew I’d get at least 30 blocks from it. But they kept going, and I ended up with 56.  Fifty! Six! 

That’s enough to make a 42x48” green string quilt if I wanted to. But I don’t. So I’ll probably use some of these when I start playing with all the green squares, HSTs, wider strips and little bits to make a “Creature” or “Thang” quilt. And I could use some for a green table runner. Oh! And I’ll definitely mix some with my never-ending pile of multi-colored string blocks. All I need is more time. (*cackles maniacally*).

Bruce got his second Covid vaccine yesterday. YAY! My second one is next week. This weekend is my birthday, and I decided to exercise my shopping finger to buy some stuff I wanted. In addition to the fabric shown below, I got an Accuquilt Go full-size cutter (all I had was the smaller one before). 

The splatter fabric on the left is a wide backing for future quilts (RSC quilts that go to QFK). The orange fabric on the right depicts actual circuits for a crystal radio, so naturally Bruce loves it. It’ll eventually be incorporated into a quilt for him. 

Spring is trying its hardest to spring, and we’ve seen crocuses on our walks. I’m sure tulips and hyacinths will be following shortly. Bruce is non-committal about whether he wants to do a vegetable garden this year. He hasn’t ordered any seeds yet, so if we have one the size will be greatly reduced and we’ll need to buy seeds at a local nursery. I’m pretty sure I can get him to decide on 2-3 growing beds. Fresh tomatoes, spaghetti squash, peas.  

Utah is opening up the Covid vaccinations to everyone as of April 1. Wow! We’ll be “safe” by then (after our last dose waiting period) I’m looking forward to actually visiting a restaurant in April (if Bruce will agree and we feel it’s safe) and then doing some clothes shopping for spring and summer. But the best part is that we have tentative plans for Mother’s Day with my son Ryan, DIL Kim and DGD Lauren. We’re hoping to snag an outdoor table at one of our favorite restaurants, The Bohemian. 

That’s it from here. Talk to you next week! Stay safe! xo

Linking up to Scrappy Saturday at So Scrappy