Hi! Just in time for summer...I finished my Beach Umbrellas quilt...
I've always loved this traditional pattern but it looked so hard!
I thought it was made up of wedge shaped pie slices then the octagons would be set somehow into a background of four pointed stars.
But no! The blocks are squares cut into quarters on the diagonal. One simply
string-pieces across both ends.[ see details here]. I collected brilliant pink and orange and red fabrics for years...
this Lily Pulitzer piece, found on eBay was the inspiration swatch, later used for the label...
More thought went into this design than perhaps meets the eye.
The central area of the quilt is the sandy beach, closely dotted with colorful beach umbrellas.
( Google images above. Too close for comfort! Lucky for me I have a lot more space and open sand, below.)
I used four different tan ''sand'' prints, each with beach motifs: shells or sandcastles, or footprints, exactly as you'd see at the real beach....
The borders are the blue ocean water.
I chose a turquoise batik with a pattern of rippled circles, like ripples on calm seas.
The binding is wide, same turquoise, with lime green hearts that are the waves further out to sea....and hearts for loving the beach.
I chose not to use a contrast binding, I wanted to enhance the feeling of limitless ocean beyond the beach.
The backing is a watermelon print batik in my design colors. What says summer days and picnics more than fresh rosy watermelon?
Then Mr Sun, a motif that is on almost all my quilts, somewhere....
The machine quilting was completed by Lori C. at Quilter's Imagination, on eBay. The first person who tried to quilt this top had difficulties with the thick fabrics where the points converge. I almost threw the unfinished quilt away in disgust and dismay! My friend here, Mel, talked me into going out late one night a few years ago, to rescue the discarded disaster.
And now I am glad I listened...
love
lizzy
gone to the beach.....
note: aerial beach umbrella pix are from internet.
my own beach is too empty,
lol....no 'brellies.
all other pix by me.
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