A little happy Tutorial ~ Marvellous Mendocino Wave Quilt

Do not adjust your screens folks.......its the picture that's a bit blotchy not your monitors.... actually those blotches are rain drops and big rain drops let me tell you!  

Last week, I left mum (Penny) home alone so to speak and took off with Andy and the kids to our favourite holiday spot, the North Norfolk coast.  Unfortunately, we were not blessed with the best of weather, but thankfully we had access to a swimming pool and had taken loads of DVD's with us (Poppy has now been introduced to Star Wars!) so a brilliant time was had by all.  Obviously amid all the essential packing like food, wine and clothes.... a big bag of sewing came with me which included my Mendocino quilt ( Heather Ross's fabulous collection, recently re-released by Windham) which just needed the binding stitching down and a new bag for Pops.

Before we left, I had the lovely vision of taking lots of photo's of the quilt and bag on the beach..... it was going to be a gorgeous sunny day, with absolutely no wind and happy willing helpers (i.e the family) to hold it for me in various places and positions, so that I could get the perfect picture or two.

The reality was I'm afraid somewhat different.  After waiting to the final day, when clearly there was not going to be the 'perfect' sunny day, off to the beach we went.  Having bribed them with bacon butties for breakfast and the promise of sweets and chocolate (I'm such a good mum!) I cajoled them out of the car in to the rain and wind and took as many pictures as possible before either the quilt or bag were blown out to sea, never to be seen again!

So here are the 'edited' photo's (minus the many hands holding them down) .......

   

I fell in love with Mendocino as soon as I saw pictures of it many months ago and couldn't wait to snaffle some from the shop.  I was thrilled when Poppy, who would you believe it is not in to pretty florals, saw this collection and was as excited as me and pleaded with me to make a quilt.  Always happy to oblige I  played around with different ideas, but in the end kept things simple (and quick!) and went for strips cut at varying depths across the full width of the fabric.

For her quilt I picked 6 Long Quarters of the low volume fabrics from the collection, cut off the selvedges and then sub cut them as follows:

Swim Class Light Blue
(A) 1 at 5" x Full Width of Fabric (FWOF)
(B) 1 at 4" x FWOF

Large Octopus Light Blue
(C) 1 at 3" x FWOF
(D) 1 at 6" x FWOF

Swim Class Orange
(E) & (F) 2 at 4 1/2" x FWOF

Sea Horses Light Blue
(G) 1 at 2" x FWOF
(H) 1 at 3" x FWOF
(I) 1 at 4" x FWOF

Underwater Sisters Blue on Blush
(J) 1 at 3 1/2" x FWOF
(K) 1 at 5 1/2" x FWOF

Swim Class Yellow
(L) 1 at 5" x FWOF
(M) 1 at 4" x FWOF

I then sewed the strips together with a 1/4" seam allowance in the following order:

B
L
K
E
H
M
C
G
J
F
I
D
A

After squaring up, I made a quilt sandwich (you can see how I like to this here) and then I machine quilted using Aurifil 40wt in Aqua in wavy lines across the quilt which was thoroughly enjoyable and a departure from my usual straight lines.  Personally I think the wavy lines create a little illusion and you lose the straight lines created by the piecing.

The backing fabric reminded me of the scales on a fish.  You can squeeze the back out of 125cm (5 FQs) or allow 150cm (6 FQ's) if you don't mind having some left over for future projects.  The cheery orange binding picks up beautifully on the orange accents in the Mendocino.  I cut my binding at 2 1/2" and you'll need 5 strips.  So you'll need 1/2 metre of fabric (2 FQ's) and again you'll have some left over.

The finished quilt measures 105cm x 120cm and is great for weekend snuggles on the sofa watching a favourite movie!

I also made Poppy a new bag for the holiday for her to put all her activity stuff in.  (She like her mum does not travel lightly!) I again used the fabulous Mendocino prints, but in the richer shades.  I used a bag pattern from a new range of patterns that we'll shortly be stocking.... (watch this space)! 

The pattern includes instructions for a whole cloth version and for a square pieced version, it was however, very easy to adapt the pattern to the quilt as you go version that I made, as the front and back panels are simple rectangles with a semi circle recess cut out.

Inside the bag there are loads of pockets which can be made to fit what ever you want to put in them.  For example in Poppy's there's a pocket for her tablet, some pencils, her MP3 player, stickers...all the things that an 8 year old needs!  As I did for the outside the lining is gloriously scrappy!

I've 'borrowed' Poppy's quilt and bag for the time being and they're taking a little holiday in the shop if you would like to come and take a peek.

Here's a few other pics from our hols..... including the obligatory 'walking away' shot.  I love these as I can see how Jamie and Poppy have grown.  

The beach photo's were taken on our first day at West Runton.  The others were from our visit to Holkham Hall and walking at Blakeney point.  You can see as each day passed so did the number of layers we had on!

Oh and if you didn't believe me on just how windy it was.........

 

As you can imagine....... I was shouting...Jamie do not let go!!!!!!