Anchors Aweigh Quilt

I made a version of Tula Pink's 'Anchors Aweigh' quilt for my Mothers birthday.

It is basically the same pattern, but I changed the scale from 2" blocks to 1.5" blocks as the finished quilt would have been too large for storage on the boat my parents bought when they retired. Here's a link to the free quilt pattern.

I also designed my own 'seascape' quilting, rather than the recommended pattern.

The other elements, such as the 'Salt Water' fabric or the grey and white cotton I basically kept the same as the pattern, although I used some Calico Laine plain fabrics instead of the recommended Kona cotton.

I have wanted to do a nautical quilt for a while, as I live by a working harbour, and Tula's design was perfect for this. The quilt took me about 6 months to complete (It was quite labour intensive so I paced myself, in between other projects).

A view of beautiful sunny Folkestone Harbour and some of the fishing/leisure craft at anchor.

The local fishermen were quite curious as to what I was doing with their crates and other paraphernalia. Obviously I didn't go down there during their peak working hours!

Here's how the quilt turned out:

I photographed it on the jetty at Folkestone Harbour.

 

Some close ups of the front:

'Wave' quilting

 A quilted Jellyfish.

A Seahorse.

Seashells, seaweed, a 'mermaids purse' and gravel on the sea bed.

A Crab sitting on the Anchor.

And the reverse:

 The Jellyfish again. It doesn't show up too well in these photos but for the back I used a variegated blue thread for the quilting.

A close up of the Crab

The bottom back showing the sea bed, including shells, rocks, seaweed, starfish, mermaids purse and fish.

Note that the name of the boat is hand embroidered into a 'Salt Water' square at the bottom centre of the border.

Other embroidered features such as the fish, a fishing line (my Step Dad catches fish to eat whilst they are sailing) were harder to photograph.

The backing was extra wide Klona cotton in a lovely baby blue, bordered by leftover 'Salt Water' blocks. I used a simple grey binding so as not to distract from the detail of the quilt.

PS: My Mum loved it, and it has already been to France and back!

PPS: I have re-started my blog 'Random Thoughts of a Bored Artist' with some changes HERE. Check it out. I have upgraded it to COLOUR and here's a peek of the kind of thing you'll be seeing: