Ocean waves

I found myself in possession of a few layer cakes at some point, and had no idea what to do with them until I saw this ocean waves pattern using 10 inch squares.  I knew straight away that I wanted to use a red and beige layer cake to make the pattern, and soon found a plain cream background to use with it.  

That was a long time ago.  A couple of years maybe?  Other than the other quilts I was working on at the time, the major hurdle I had in getting this particular quilt started was the thought of the eight at a time half square triangles that would be required.  Usually I don't mind half square triangles.  But the thought of sewing 40 x eight at a time half square triangles, and then ironing and trimming to size the resulting 320 block parts, was definitely something I wasn't looking forward to.  

I divided the layer cake into dark reds, medium/light reds, medium beiges and pale red/beiges to get the particular colour effect I was after.  Sewing the half square triangles then commenced, followed by cutting the apart, ironing, and sorting in colour groups. 

Trimming was ignored until the pieces were required in the larger blocks.  That way I only had to do a handful at a time as I needed them.  Still, it was a lot. But one day I found myself with 16 the main blocks, and only a series of half and quarter size blocks to go to add to the four sides.   

I had already decided that I wanted to quilt a motif or design in the background centres, and found a design I liked in a hand quilting book that I had.  Not like I hand quilt.  But the book has some nice designs that I can free motion on the machine. 

I did some walking foot stitch / stitch in the ditch lines across the whole quilt, and then quilted the background motifs.  The quilt didn't quite seem finished, so I did a bit more walking foot work around the squares, and a little ruler work on the pinwheels.  Then it looked done enough.

Of course, I couldn't find the right shade of red in my stash to use for the binding, so a trip to the fabric shop was required.  To try and keep the triangle points on the edge of the quilt, I sewed the binding to the front, then hand sewed to the back.  However, this presented unexpected challenges, with a particular cat making the incorrect assumption that the quilt was laying out for him to sleep on.  

Finally it was done.  And I am happy with how it has turned out.  

I think I will give quilts with a billion half square triangles a miss for a while though. I do have plans to use up a couple more layer cakes that I own, but not using such complicated patterns.  I'm actually keen to get started on one of them quite soon, but don't yet have the background fabric I need - it's on the shopping list.  

In the meantime, I've got a small quilt top using charm squares to finish, I might think about getting started on the first block of a new your beauty quilt I'm hanging out to make with a bunch of fabric I have horded away, and I'll keep working on a hawaiian themed granny square quilt that do in between other quilt blocks as a bit of a leader and ender project.

And I have another recent finish that is currently drying on the line and will likely end up on here in the near future.  😛