Ocean sewing

To my son’s joy,  I’ve finally completed the Oceans quilt top.  I think he wasn’t sure that he would ever see this day!  All the blocks are sashed, quilted, and sewn together.  I started this quilt back in 2015, part of a QAL from Quilt Art Designs, so it is great to finally see it coming into the home stretch.

For the most part in the quilting I just outlined the creatures, and then added some internal details.  The sea lion pup finally got his whiskers, for example.

I tried to make sure that there weren’t any areas too large that went without quilting. I don’t want this thing to come apart in the wash after all this effort!  But I didn’t do any quilting on the sashing yet, as I plan to add lines to look like actual waves once I’ve done the sandwich.

After the quilting, I sewed the blocks together with a slightly wider seam.  After pressing the seams open, I don’t think the extra lines of thicker batting is going to be noticeable in the finished quilt.  There are places in the paper pieced blocks that are thicker/stiffer feeling due to the many tiny pieces having overlapping layers.

I also got the back pieced.

Now, of course, my son has started nagging about getting the pinning done.  He definitely keeps me on track!