Cooler Places - Ocean Waves!

We've had a string of triple digit days here in the desert.  We are parched!  This definitely does not help with the wild fires!  We are hoping for the monsoons to start so we will get some much needed rain.

In the meantime, we quilt until we wilt!

The quilt at the top of my blog is my Ocean Waves quilt.  It was made from a fat eighth exchange in a scrap group a few years ago.  During this exchange, most people were exchanging medium and dark fabrics.  Sooooo, I decided to be the one to provide us all with lights/neutrals to go with the mediums and darks.  Of course, I cheated -- I gave myself not only the fat eighth in the exchange, but whatever remaining fabric I had purchased that month so I could build up my stash of lights/neutrals.

I also challenged myself to make a quilt from just the fat eighths being exchanged with few additional fabrics. Since I had always wanted to make an ocean waves quilt and the fat eighths seemed to lend themselves to smaller pieces, it seemed the perfect way to use them.  In one of my magazines I found an ocean waves that had a printed grid for the half-square triangle units, but where I used the larger triangles to complete the block, the pattern in the magazine called for an alternate miniature block.  I think it was a mariner's compass which I did not want in my quilt.

It is one of my favorite quilts and lives in the loft of our house where I see it every time I come up the stairs.  The loft is also where I have my collection of Noah's Ark things.  Here in the middle of the desert, we do what we can to have water around us to cool us off?!?  I don't know, it just worked out that way.

Each fat eighth gave me two blocks for the quilt.  Although some of the fabrics were not what we normally would think of as water fabrics, I noticed that when flying over the ocean, there were many colors seen or reflected in the water, so they work for me.  There were a lot that had tans in them which certainly fits with where the ocean hits the beach sand.

When the blocks were done, it was time to figure out what to do for the borders.

For the inner borders I decided to extend the larger half square triangles into the border leaving a trapezoid to be filled in.  I had the PERFECT fabric which I cut into trapezoids.  Unfortunately, I forgot and added only 7/8" to the dimension I needed.  OOPS, I cut all of them and they were -- yep -- 7/8" too short to fill the space.  All the PERFECT fabric was used up, sooooooooooo off to the quilt shop(s) I went in search of another PERFECT sand-like fabric.  Do you know how quickly quilt shop employees leave you alone if you tell them you are looking for fabric that looks like sand along the beach where the water has swirled it.  I can tell you!  Pretty, darned fast!  In looking for the inner border fabric, though, I found the PERFECT "water-meets-sand" fabric for the outer border as well as several different possibilities for the inner border.

 I think what I found works as well as the original PERFECT fabric.  Sometimes mistakes work out okay.

The border works, don't you think?  The outer border is quilted with a clam shell shape.  The blocks are quilted with straight lines through the half-square triangle units.  It is a quilt that takes me to the ocean whenever I look at it.  Like today when it will be at least 110 degrees.  Imagine cool breezes and waving palms.  Ahhhh, that feels better.

Where do you go to cool off? 

Until next time, quilt 'til you wilt! 
Lois