Here Fishy Fishy

Or Wonderfully Fishy I should say...

Have your visited Fat Cat Patterns lately? (yes it's linked for you)  Well, this is the new BOM for this year.  Best yet it's free. Sindy is generously offering up one block a month, for this cutie.   For those of us who just can't wait, there is a place you can purchase the complete pattern. I know it's late in the month, so if your interested you better hurry on over to get your January block before it's gone!  :-)

I was lamenting over my growing pile of batting scraps, when this pattern came into my line of sight. It was perfect for a Quilt As You Go method, so I could use up some of my scraps. I was equally delighted to find that I had enough fabric for the front and the back in my never ending stacks of fabrics too, so I had to purchase not one thing to make this quilt.  Yeah!!! All my bargain shopping is starting to pay off!

This quilt was a perfect place to start re-thinking about free motion quilting again too. I fell back on what my first instructor taught us. Use your fabrics to dictate the direction you quilt. They will talk to you. Oh yeah, I thought she was crazy! But I have to admit now, she wasn't at all. So if any of you are thinking I have slipped a cog in my brain, I am going to share a bit of the path, my fabrics lead me down.

Here is a piece of the fabric I chose for one of my fishies.

You can see how it leads your eye.

With a simple straight stitch you get this fun quilty effect on the fish!

 

 

In these photos you can clearly see how the design spoke to me.

 

Simple swirls.

Dots

Swirls on fins, and checkerboard fish.

Strings.

Plaid.

While this fabric was a bit more difficult, straight lines seemed to define it a bit.

The texture of more straight lines.

Rain drops.

All very simple once we let the fabrics speak.

 

I had so much fun listening to my fabrics, that my mind opened up a bit more.

 

 

While putting my blocks together I got to thinking about how babies love texture. The different feelings on their little fingers stimulates their brains. So I decided to change up my Quilt As You Go (QAYG) method a bit. Rather than making my quilt lie completely flat like a regularly quilt would be, I cut my strips to attach the blocks together, for the back a little smaller and pulled those seams in to where they overlapped. The top strips I made the regular size and hand stitched them down on my seam line giving it a bit of puffy-ness. You can clearly see that my quilt does not lay flat, but has a delightful texture to it. I added a line of wavy stitching thru all my joining strips once it was all put together.

 

If you have never tried a QAYG quilt, here are some great tutorials you might want to look at.

http://www.sewwequilt.com/2011/03/quilt-as-you-go-qayg.html

 

http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutorials-f10/ditters-string-quilt-t60764.html

            http://lifeisbeautifulbom.wordpress.com/quilt-as-you-go-tutorial/

Here is the back.

You can get a good look at the wavy lines

I stitched down thru the joining strips.

 

Sindy's pattern is a total of 15 blocks. She added a few extras for pillows, or wall hangings, etc. I chose to put them all in my quilt, but it needed a little more width to keep it symmetrical. I chose a simple border on one side only to accomplish that. With the help of my trusty Accuquilt "GO" Baby, I was able to cut out a variety of circles to jazz it up a bit and really bring the quilt together.

 

 

So, now hurry on over to Fat Cat

http://fatcatpatterns.com/BoMs.html

and start collecting your patterns.

 

This month's is...

Who I have named Herbie!

 

From all the others,

Gladys

Penelope

Oscar

Mulligan

Leroy

Sherry

Goldie

Candie

Stretch

Wilbur

Slick

Georgette

Millie

 

And last by not least

Burt

We wish you happy stitchin!

And by the way, you can name your fishy's anything you like!

 

:-)