I’ve recently finished a new quilt top, one that hadn’t been in my plans but just fit into my schedule perfectly. Here it is:

(I have to figure out a better way to photograph quilt tops. Hmm. I end up holding the camera overhead (even when I stand on a chair or ladder) and hoping for the best, about 10 times in a row. (Thank goodness for digital cameras!) I wish I had a wall high enough and big enough to hang each quilt. Hmm. I’ll keep thinking about it.)

The fabrics are mostly from a collection called Mermaid in Blue Jeans by Chelsea Design Works from StudioE. I’d ordered the panels, thinking they might make good tote bags, but changed my mind once they arrived. I decided to make a quilt instead and ordered another set of blocks to make it bigger. There are two free quilt patterns available for download on the StudioE website, but I didn’t see those before I started. (It’s okay. I don’t mind having designed my own.) You can also see on that page of the StudioE website that only the panels and the pink contrast fabric are currently available from the manufacturer. I bought my fabric on Etsy where all of the fabrics are still available.

Here are the fabrics that I used and the quantities. First, the mermaid panels. There are eight 10.5″ squares sold in the panel. You can see that there are really four designs then the mirror image of each one (with two having a colour change.) I bought two of these sets.

Then the allover mermaid print:

I had some of this left from my tote bags but ordered another meter for the outside border and used pretty much all of it for that. I cut 5″ strips lengthwise for the border and had only two inches left over. (I prefer to cut borders on the lengthwise grain, since it’s less inclined to stretch than the crosswise grain. This means, though, that you either need more fabric or have to do more piecing.) Even though this is a one-way design, there’s a lot going on, so I didn’t bother to match the seams for that outside border. I just didn’t sew any mermaids in half.

The third fabric I used from the line was the Dark Blue Mermaid Wave. I had one meter of this fabric, but once I started the sashing, I had to buy another. I have some left and I made some cutting errors. You could probably make it work with 1.5m, especially if you were less matchy-matchy than me.

The bright pink was in my stash. It’s a basic blender that comes in lots of colours and is stocked at Fabricland. It’s called Mystic Vine by John Louden. (That’s a UK site that shows many of the colours. I’ll guess mine is the Fuchsia.) Besides the fact that I like pink and navy together, the brighter pink gives the quilt some punch. I tried a paler one that matched the pink in the blocks more closely, but it was dull. I had maybe half a meter which I used to border the blocks and bought another meter for the border and binding. That’s a .75″ strip used to border the blocks (which finishes out to .25″ – I used .25″ seam allowances throughout) and a 1″ strip around the border that was cut at 1.5″.

There’s a challenge with these printed blocks that I also experienced with the dragon quilt. The blocks are printed square, but when you pre-wash the fabric, the cotton shrinks more in one dimension than the other, leaving rectangles instead of squares. Mine were about half an inch longer than they were wide after washing, which confounded me for a while. OTOH, it’s better to have this shrinkage before the quilt is pieced. Ultimately, I realized it didn’t really matter since I wasn’t coordinating these blocks with other square blocks. I just cut longer borders for the height.

The second challenge was that wave fabric. It’s a one-way design, which meant some planned cutting of the sashing. Also, it looks so much better when the wave is continuous across the quilt. (This is probably why it’s only used as an accent fabric in the free patterns. That’s a lot simpler.) I discovered that the wave shape repeats every 4″, with the complete design repeating every 12″. That’s why I cut 4″ sashing – it was easy to make matches then. My blocks finished out to just under 12″ with the pink borders, which was a happy coincidence. If I did this again (not going to happen!) I would plan for them to be 12″ wide.

I was going to have the blue horizontal sashing go all the way across, but again, it looked a bit bland. Instead, I cut 9 blocks of the allover print and didn’t like that at all. Next, I fussy-cut 9 mermaids out of the allover print for the blocks at the junctions of the sashing. This was less bright than I’d hoped, but the backgrounds blend so well that it’s not immediately obvious where my seams don’t join with surgical precision. I like the small mermaids there, too.

I found some turquoise-green cotton in the sale bin that matches those green mermaid tails and bought it for the backing. I’ve cut bias binding from the rest of the bright pink for the edges. The quilt will finish out at 60″ by 64″ or so. I’m going to try quilting it on the machine once my walking foot arrives. (Not as a first project, but it’s in that queue.)

I like this one. It presented a few challenges but was a pretty easy make while I finished writing a book. What do you think?