My Blue Hawaii
She's finally finished and hopefully I can make space on one wall for displaying in my quilting studio (formerly known as our dining room). It's my only room with lots of color, the walls are a dark blue and quilts hung usually have lots of purple, yellow and green. Most of you know that the "little" boys and I packed our 2 suitcases and headed off to have our own Hawaiian adventure when hubby was activated for a 10 month stint filling a position at Hickam AFB. I packed an old UFO of intricate hand applique to work on during my LONG days over there but I got bored really fast with that. I needed to zoom along on projects. I'm not happy if I can't finish at least one project per month and one per week would be even better! I picked up a sewing machine @ the Women's Expo in September but still had no fabrics or tools to speak of... Found a quilt shop nearby but prices were high and nothing really interested me. A few of my quilting friends took to the cause and shipped me fabrics and patterns. YIPPEE! Then I finally was able to get to The Calico Cat, hours are not that shopper friendly and their website does not do the store justice! This little shop is packed with fabric, bright colors and projects hung from every imaginable space to excite the senses. Barely able to navigate the aisles with things stacked floor to ceiling almost. The owner's dad built the shopping center many years back and she lives across the street. Her newsletters include lots of beautiful doodlings over the paper and she has a classroom in an upstairs building. True to Hawaii, no A/C... This community is very hilly, packed with houses that almost touch each other and a great view of the ocean. The street is bustling with mom and pop type eateries - nothing of the sort that we see here on the mainland of course! Even on Saturday at 8AM, it took about 1.5 hours to drive about 18 miles by freeway and even more time to leave in the afternoon. I signed up for a class to make this One Block Wonder. Fudged when it came to supplies and just made do without those things because I already had the book and ruler at home as well as a bagged up UFO waiting for my return. I can't even remember the ruler I did buy that was much cheaper, used some vinyl sticky tape to mark where I needed to cut and got busy. I cut my hexagons much smaller than the sizes used in the book, my finished size is about 5" but I wish I had cut maybe 1/2" smaller to get less visable frog in my finished units. I used a bright novelty fabric with a frog on a lily pad for my focus fabric. The end result, My Blue Hawaii which represents for me the ocean and sky with the darkest blue, the turqoise represents the shallow sandy bottom water, the orchid represents one of my favorite trees; the Hong Kong Orchid which were abundant in my neighbood. The top was finished in Hawaii but I waited for our return to quilt it. I tried some new techniques to finish the top. Two battings, one warm and natural and the 2nd one a poly for "puff" and more dimension after quilting. I also used a faux piped binding that finishes with both sides stitched by machine. That turned out fairly well also and I will definately try this again. All in all, I am pleased with the final results and am glad to call this one DONE.
The backing
Lots of texture
My Blue Hawaii approx 66 X 45
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