Here Fishy Fishy!

Ok, for any of you that didn't get the title, it's from Sesame Street ;-) The top block is the sea quilt block I made today, the bottom one I made a while ago. I am trying to get different scale creatures on the quilt, so it will be an adventure getting them together in the end project. I'm looking forward to the challenge. I plan on making the pieced blocks first, then setting it together. When the center is together I will do some of the applique, then I'll add the borders and do some more applique.

The next block I'm going to tackle is the humpback whale. It will be the hardest block I'm making, and I need to get the templates cut out. I'm a rotary cutter girl, so using templates is a new thing. I've done other crafts with templates, so I have no worries about getting the pieces cut accurately, I'm only a bit concerned about getting them sewn accurately since the angles are so odd. The directions suggest you cut out two whales at once, since so many of the parts can only go one way, and it's easy to confuse them. If you cut out two at once, you end up having enough parts for one whale to swim left, and one to swim right, and you have enough of the one way parts for each whale. I guess that gives me some fudge-ability. I was only planning on one whale on the quilt, so I can use the one that comes out better, or if they are both awesome, I could use them both. Of course, if they are both lousy, I have an easier whale pattern to try and I can ditch the humpback completely ;-)

The sea quilt is stretching my quilting ability. I had never used a Tri-Recs ruler before, and both of the fish blocks used it. Now that I know how to use that ruler, I should try a star quilt that has those Triangle-in-a-Square units instead of Flying Geese for the star points. I'll be doing a lot of applique on this quilt, which I know how to do, but is not my favorite thing to do. I'm opting for raw edge applique with a satin stitch edging to save time on the applique. I am going to attempt an optical illusion with the borders, and that is what I am most excited to try. I need to get the center done before I can even cut the borders, so on to the humpback whale!