I am so excited to be part of this blog tour. I saw Sherry's beautiful fabrics and I knew my latest design was perfect with the turquoises and blues and greens .The fabric is arriving in stores and is now available for purchase. To find a store near you to purchase fabric from check out Island Batik’s Shop Locator.
Meet Los Ojos Del Mar. During covid lockdowns last year I decided I needed make a bargello quilt. and I resisted and resisted. Then I fell and broke my wrist. and guess what I couldn't hold a ruler to cut fabric at all. So while I was totally feeling sorry for myself, I bought two jelly rolls cause they didn't require me to cut fabric. I started out thinking I would make a jelly roll race quilt because it didn't require cutting. But then I decided hey lets turn this into a bargello. I made my strip sets. I figured out how to hold the ruler with my cast and I cut my strips. I didn't have a pattern i was following and I totally improvised Flowers for Freya. Once I figured out how to cut my fabric I had to figure out how to pin my fabric. I then got the second cast and I had an easier time pinning. I finished the original Flowers for Freya quilt around Christmas when I could longarm again. A good friend of mine lost her husband to covid in early January. She got a different quilt, but the original Flowers for Freya went to her mother-in-law. It was just the right place for it. I had been bitten by the Bargello bug.
As I fell down the bargello rabbit hole, I found the most perfect fabric ever. It is a sharks tooth print. It spoke to me on levels I just can't really express. I ended up with a fat quarter bundle, and two jelly rolls of the Riptide line to go with the bolt of the sharks teeth. I then designed at 4 more bargello quilts. The second of which became Sharky Sea. I love it. It is such a cozy quilt. I continued my fall down the bargello rabbit hole.
Sherry send me the swatches for Calm Lagoon and they are a perfect line. I am a blue person and love watery colored prints. This is one of the first quilts since covid hit and we went into to lock down that I have really felt creative. I was sewing my bargello and I decided this quilt needed some applique. because always with the applique, especially fish. I had to work really hard to rein in my desire to put a big giant applique jumping fish in the center. I chose some simple fish that I used on Devonian Rain. You can get the pattern here!
Fun facts about the Applique Fish:
The applique fish are based on a real fish that lived during the Late Devonian period, approximately 385 million years ago. The scientific name of the fish is Eusthenopteron foordi. The name derives from two Greek stems—eustheno- "strength" and -pteron "wing" referencing the strongly developed fins. These fossil fish have been found in Miguasha, Quebec, Canada. Eusthenopteron is a lobe-finned fish. We’ve known about these fish for a long time, they were first described in 1881 by J.F. Whiteaves.
Many of their features are like those of early 4-limbed animals! 4-limbed animals are called tetrapods. They are the ancestors to all land animals such as reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals. Their skulls, teeth, and nostrils are all similar! What makes Eusthenopteron really special is that the bone structure in their lobbed-fins resemble the leg structure of the earliest tetrapods, which were named Ichthyostega and Acanthostega. At one time, these fish were thought to be a key transitional fossil between fish and land-dwelling tetrapods. Now scientists think this fish was strictly aquatic.
Eusthenopteron is very different from some later 4-limbed fishes and other tetrapods who lived during the Carboniferous period which came right after the Devonian period. Unlike later tetrapods, these fish lack a larval stage and a definitive metamorphosis.
Be sure to visit all of these amazingly talented quilters and designers to see their beautiful Calm Lagoon projects!
December 6 – Sally Williams of Paleofish Designs <-You are Here
Leave me a comment about your thoughts on applique for a change to win a free copy of the pattern.