Sea Glass tutorial (at last!)

I've wanted to do this for a while, and kept meaning to... a Sea-Glass tutorial.  I've made this quilt in several color and layout variations so far, and am working on yet another one, so... why not?  Here it is - the Sea-Glass tutorial.

Fabric A and B— 1 yard each, Fabric C, E, F and H – ½ yard each, Fabric D and G – ¾ yard fabric,  backing fabric – 3 yards

Note: all materials are in yardage, NOT fat quarters 

Cutting Directions



Quilt block layout



Cut 25 of each piece: (I don’t care if you use scissors, rotary cutter, your teeth…)

A—6.5”x6.5”               E—2.5”x2.5”

B—6.5”x6.5”               F—5.5”x3.5”

C– 3.5”x3.5”                G– 5.5”x3.5”

D—7.5”x3.5”               H—2.5”x4.5”

Sewing Instructions

Cut fabric and arrange in tidy stacks.  Or messy ones, whichever works best for you!

 Sew Piece A to Piece B along one seam.  Repeat for other sets, put aside. 

A to B

  Sew Piece C to Piece D along one seam.  Repeat for other sets, put aside.



C to D



 Sew Piece E to Piece H along one seam.  Repeat for other sets, put aside.

E to H

 Sew Piece F to Piece G along one seam.  Repeat for other sets, put aside.

F to G

  Iron all seams, either press open or press to darker side.  Or press as you prefer, really.  It's your quilt.  And then, back to more sewing!

 Sew Piece C/D sets to Piece F/G sets on one seam,  Repeat for each set

  Iron all seams as before.

 Sew all C/D/F/G sets to E/H sets.

 Iron all seams as before.

Sew all A/B sets to C-H sets, using quilt block diagram on back as a guide.

Iron once again as before.

LAYOUT

The layout is really a personal matter - I've done two different layouts, and the one in the step-by-step pictures is going to have a third layout. 

The original Sea Glass is laid out as follows:

Lay out first block with the A piece in the upper left corner.  Next block to the right will have A piece in upper right corner.  Next block will have A piece in lower right.  Fourth will have A piece in lower left.  Fifth (final) in top row will once again have the A piece in upper left corner of the block.

The second row will start with the A piece in the upper right corner, and follow the same pattern.  All following rows will do the same—advance the location of the A piece by one position.

The second and third versions I did are laid out a little differently...

In this version, Piece A is matched to Piece A (making one giant Piece A that everything else turns around).

Stitch blocks together!  We’re almost there!  This is the part where I step back and say: Back, quilt, and bind as you prefer.  Oh, and if you do make a version of Sea-Glass, let me know!  I'd love to see pictures!  (And I will try to get a flickr page set up for them, too!)

Enjoy!

Shay

Monday (deep breath) and duct tape

Whew.  Made it through the weekend!  No, it wasn't a bad weekend, just one that happened at light speed.  I spent most of my weekend in the forge, working away at a variety of projects - from piecing to cutting to sewing a gift dress, to... to... ugh.  I don't even remember it all!

Oh, and a better picture of Sea Glass.  I like this one.  We finally found something to drape the quilt over so we could get it out in the sunlight for a picture.  I'm much more pleased with this pic!

Let's see... I worked on Crazy Diamonds (both halves are pieced now... now to decide how to quilt them!).  I finished up the individual blocks for my Wonky Star Runner.... sometime this week (or next weekend) I will cut the sashing and borders and get that done.  Quilting it will be a breeze (she says boldly, once again using WAY too many parentheses). 

Here's a collection of the Wonky Stars.  There are a fair number of them, and I am looking forward to seeing the whole thing done!  I was a little surprised, when we went to find material for the sashing and border, that fabric with stars on it didn't look good.  I went with a muted blue instead - not what I expected to get, but it looked better with all the myriad blues already present.  Should have seen us there, laying blocks over fabric, turning them, muttering under our breaths....

And the other project took up all of Sunday.  14 hours' worth, anyway.  I won't post pictures yet - both because it isn't QUITE done yet, and because while it's a slim chance, there's still a chance of her stumbling across the pic.  So... no pictures yet.  Maybe after Christmas.  :)

Here we have Shay's duct tape solution to sewing problems.  The edge of my work space is... unfinished.  Rough.  It catches.  And on the project from previous paragraph, I couldn't afford for the fabric to catch.  (It's fabric that catches easily already, it doesn't need help!)  So out of sheer frustation, I duct taped the edge of the work top.  Y'know... it doesn't even look that bad. 

One of these days I will paint the work space.  Eventually.  Right now, it's not really that big a deal.  It works for what it's intended, and it kind of fades into the background.  But I never actually thought I would be using duct tape for sewing solutions.  Silly me! 

Back into the Forge

There is much going on in the forge these days.

Finalizing another pattern and developing another, planning for a few more classes in the next few months, and sewing - always sewing!  (Mind you, we also moved a little tv/dvd player out there when we are, so there's more light and movement.  Right now, lots of shows about ghosts.)

I am working on three quilts right now: Crazy Diamonds (half blocks done, a quarter pieced top), Smoked Glass, and Death By ??.  (The ?? ... I have't figured out the death by part).  Smoked Glass is a Sea Glass variant, obviously, and more pictures will be forthcoming this evening. 

D has really buckled down and started plowing through the quilts!  She's finished up Asian Blocks, the tops for Yurt Door and for Lattice, and for Sea Life (maybe to be called Aquarium).  Now she's working on another variant of Sea Glass.

So, we're busy busy!  I still miss my cat, and bringing her ashes home was tough.  I will look to the top of the stairs for her head for a long time to come.  But it's getting better.

And I have ideas... oh, I have ideas.  Which to me means I am coming out of grief and exhaustion and moving on.  And that is a good thing.

S

Labor Day in the Forge

Finished Sea Glass!  Took it to one of the semi-local quilt shops, and owner there tried repeatedly to steal it.  :)  Gave me many compliments on it, and showed it to everyone who walked through the doors.... That in itself makes me feel amazingly good.

But even better in my mind - I love this quilt!  It is soothing and calm, and looks the most professional of all my quilts so far.  I am happy with this one.

So now I am making a second version of it, and D is making a different version.  The pattern shouldn't take too long to work up, and then it will be ready to send off as well!  (Hooray!)

I need to get a close-up shot of the binding - it's self-bound, using a hem stitch to sew it down.  I didn't particularly want to hand-stitch this weekend, and I liked the way it looked with the hem stitch.  (So did the LQS owner... he oohed and aahed quite a bit, said he'd never seen a visible stitched border he liked before this one!)

D got her Asian Blocks quilt done (except for the binding, which should happen tonight, I think), and picked up fabrics for the Sea Glass variant, and determined how she was going to quilt her Latticework quilt. 

I managed another twenty blocks for Crazy Diamonds (I really need to start piecing my strips of blocks!) making me almost halfway done with the blocks (yay!), and got further ahead on my homicide quilt.  (err... have I mentioned that one before now?  shrug).  Anyway, as soon as I figure out blood splatter I will post pictures and greater details. 

I'll leave you with the outside pic of Sea Glass... hopefully I can have pics of the variant blocks up soon, too! 

looks different in this light - I like it!

Success and .... delayed success

Exciting weekend!  We went to a small (and very specialized) fabric store this past Saturday: Batiks Galore.    http://www.batiksgalore.com/  is their website - check it out! They specialize in batiks, obviously.  :) 

It's a fabulous place, out in the middle of... well, not nowhere, but on county roads south of our area.  We spent lots of time hoping they had signs!  (They did).  The store is on the owner's ranch, just a little building a little distance from the house.  They have a quilt retreat location too, for those who are interested....  They could not have been nicer to us, let us roam, touch, fondle and pull fabrics left and right!  And I took pictures of their alpacas (yup, they raise alpacas, too!), but those didn't turn out very well.  I admit, I've never been to a quilt store with alpacas... cats?  yes.  dogs?  sure!  But alpacas are new for me!  There were other beasties out there - a mule (donkey? ugh.  I never remember the difference), a couple of horses... but alpaca!  Now I have an urge to make an alpaca quilt.  Or something.  I'll have to think about that.



Sea Glass block - my test piece



It was a great place, with fabulous fabric, so of course I got all the fabric I needed for my next quilt - which is currently going under the name "Sea Glass."  It MIGHT wind up being a stained glass quilt... we'll see.  I haven't decided yet. 





Sunday I got up late, turned my eyes and scissors to Sea Glass, got all the pieces cut out, and started piecing.  For once, I remembered chaining, and managed to get almost all the pieces put together on only 1 bobbin of thread!  I am halfway done with piecing the last seam on the blocks, and after that... sew the blocks together and I will have a completed top!  I bought enough extra fabric that I can piece together a back for it, and then worry about finishing it up....

I would like to get this one done so I have a nice finished quilt to show at the next class.  Hopefully I can teach the students this block and chaining and all sorts of interesting things.  (I may do another sample block in polka dots... just because).

On the delayed success front.... I fought Sugar Skulls to a standstill.  We were getting along fine.  And then the backing freaked out on me, bunched up, and didn't want to co-operate with quilting.  So... looks like I will be picking the stitching out and starting over with the quilting.  It upset me, because I honestly thought all the trials were over with that one!  (But, I haven't given up... it's just currently a UFO.  I'll go back to it soon-ish.... after I finish Little Moo... or something). 

But really, Sea Glass makes up for the delayed success of Sugar Skulls, so it was a good weekend!  (Not to mention we got rain, I got chores done, and even got to sleep in some!).