Rainbow Fish SAHRR Complete

It was another fun year of brain work in the Stay At Home Round Robin hosted by Gail of QuiltingGail, along with several co-hosts who gave a directive each week as to what to do for that specific round. My forlorn fish and heart blocks have grown into this adorable baby/toddler quilt and I just love how it all came together.

When I drove down Main Street earlier this week, I spied that mural and thought I think I should use it for a quilt photo of my fishies quilt! Thanks to some ‘rough surface’ tape, I was able to tape it to that wall. Don’t worry: I first checked in a small corner that it wouldn’t harm the mural. Eeee! I did a little squeal when I stepped back to snap the photo. It is good!

Here's a quick look back at the development of the quilt over the six weeks of prompts.

Once I’d finished the quilt, I gave it a light spritz of water as usual and blocked it on my design wall.

The quilt is going to be a gift, intended to be either thrown on the floor as a play mat for grandbabies or snuggled around said grandbabies as they snooze, so I first intended to do some kind of a meander over the surface. However, when I decided to treat the final two rounds as one, and the motif idea of weeds waving in the current struck me, the meandering went out the window, and the quilt got custom quilting.

I’d always intended on doing some ghost bubbles after the appliqué bubbles happened, but little did I know that bubbles would become a theme for all of the quilting!

All four paper-pieced fish were stitched in the ditch. I connected the two in the third last round with some flowing wavy lines interspersed with bubbles. The side borders of that round were begging for a little fussy treatment. I recalled a feather design that substituted large circles for the feathers that I’d done on my Pocketful of Sunshine quilt years ago. Thanks to that post from February 2015, I know that the design is one of Leah Day's, called Bubble Wand. It was perfect! I used my Quilted Pineapple ruler to make a more or less even flowing arc, echoed it, and then FMQ-ed the circles. They are purposely different sizes, and no they are not perfect, but step back and they look just excellent!

I used Essential cotton thread, named 'Sky' over all of the quilt except for a fuchsia in the pink and brown aquarium 'frame'.

A little rolling back and forth happened in the centre to get the long vertical lines and bubbles.

I showed you yesterday a wee surprise that happened. Did you guess what it was?

This was (eventually) a happy accident. We won’t talk about exactly how it happened or the very bad word I said not once but twice that even MacGyver heard from the main floor 😬 … I made a small hole in the fabric of the quilt. It happened after I’d finished quilting that beautiful (expensive) turquoise and brown shimmery wavy fabric that is the sand in my mind at the bottom of the lake/sea/aquarium. Yes. Tragic indeed. 

So eventually, after I’d calmed down, I hit upon the idea of putting some sort of appliqué over it, but what in the world to put there? A little heart? 

A SNAIL! Over to my laptop I went to look at some simple line drawn snail images, because my first thought was to cut one out of fabric. I took a look through my brown fabric scraps to see if I had a snail-esque one. Well, you would not believe what I did find: that spiral, but it was not a snail. It was on a hand! This is a batik fabric with Indigenous motifs over it. All I needed to do was cut the fingers off, keep the curved thumb as the head and then FMQ the antennae! I found the perfect, unopened spool of Coats & Clark variegated brown and tan polyester to do the FMQ. It has a beautiful sheen to it when the light catches it. I think this little snail just adds that je ne sais quoi to the whole quilt. Snails are necessary in water and this little guy is helping to keep that water crystal clear!

The backing is a vintage Oshkosh cotton I’d bought years ago to make my girls outfits… yep, high quality cotton and nope, the outfits never happened, but at 140 cm wide and carefully stashed all these years waiting for the right quilt… “It us!” the fishies said. The pink and turquoise of the girl and boy is absolute perfection with the front of the quilt, and for the girl and boy grandbabies that this quilt is for.

The binding created more excitement. I thought turquoise but then wondered if I’d have enough of that fabulous Benartex fabric by Weeks and Ringle that I’d used in the paper-pieced fish and final border… yes! 

My friend loves and appreciates the cloth labels I always attach to a quilt.

I just had to take another photo in the flower boxes outside of the optometrist where the mural is. I thought the quilt colours were perfect with the Easter décor.

Here in the mural on the building without the quilt for reference. We have so many great old buildings in this town and now that we’re adding murals everywhere I have much fodder for quilt shoots!

The 6 pm light was perfect to show the beautiful vibrant colours in this quilt. Lots of new benches are showing up around town too. I like that! So the quilt is going to a good friend and neighbour who loves quilts, loves my work, and has bought several pieces from me. She has two precious grandbabies who I think will have many good times upon or underneath this quilt. She lives right on the lake, so the fish and water theme is perfect for her home. I know those grandbabies, both not even a year old yet, will enjoy gazing at the bright colours and shapes in the quilt.

Thank you Gail, and thank you Kathleen, Anja, Wendy, Brenda and Emily for such fun once again this year!

Quilt Stats:

Pattern: my own design according to prompts from hosts

Size: 41”x 42"
Fabric: scraps and stash

Batting: Fairfield 100% polyester

Backing: Oshkosh cotton

Quilted: on Avril 47 234 stitches

Threads: pieced on my Bernina and Featherweight; quilted with Essential cotton; Bottom Line in the bobbin

Linking up with Quilting Jetgirl for the Favourite Finish celebration!