Tag: Nautical

Nautical Box Quilt

This time it’s a small quilt with animal appliques!

With an impending addition to the family of friends of mine, I needed gifts. I asked them what they wouldn’t mind receiving that I could make and they said a box quilt. So I set to work on the planning stages, while making a lot of other things too. I have no self-control I guess.

I’d acquired a bunch of nautical themed fabrics ages ago, when I was online shopping for my cute animals quilt. I figured nautical would fit because my friend was already creating a whale toy at the time. So I set off to find a pattern on the internet. Eventually I came across the ‘Babe in the Woods quilt, 42 x 50″, free pattern at Maywood Studio‘, and decided that I liked it a lot. To fit the theme, I replaced the three animals with more aquatic versions from shutterstock, where I amended the whale to be a little cuter. I got some suplemental fabrics from the local market and set to work.

  • Whale
  • Seal
  • Octopus

The pattern was first scaled a little further down to create an end format of around 100x80cm. Apart from that I followed the pattern pretty exactly. The appliques were made with a sticky cotton that was stitched down. Not sure that was the right choice because it does look a little Jack Skellington. I sewed the whole thing together on the treadle. For the back, I chose a yellow whale-fabric because whales. It was a little thin though, so I fused some of the same cotton that formed the animals to the back.

  • Front
  • Back

The edging was one of the squares from the quilt pattern, I just happened to choose a fabric with tiny stripes. This turned out to be very handy because that meant I could achieve a very constant distance between my stitches without having to pay much attention. Now, when it was finished, I was afraid that it would be a little dark and not to their taste. Soon up, the other one I made..

  • Party whales!

Hook Those Dragons Scarf

So after finishing the dragon shirt, I still had about 25 cm of dragons left over. I’d also been browsing Pinterest for the past few days for those super cool looking triangular scarves. There seem to be two camps: either the large triangle clipped by the corners, or a large rectangle clipped by its corners. In the end, I decided to go for the large rectangle with dragons and a slight nautical feel. All websites with instructions indicate that you need 1.5 meter wide fabric. I ended up having to cut of some bits for it to fit nicely so my scarf is only 1 meter long.

In the end I used:

  • about 30 x 100 cm of teal fleece (back)
  • two times 13 x 100 cm of dragon fabric
  • about 6 x 100 cm of other striped fabric
  • about 105 cm of dark blue nautical looking rope
  • about 80 cm of white with a black running stitch ribbon
  • a closure hook & loop – it’s not really a loop.

I did not want a full dragon scarf, since I’m technically supposed to be an adult (I think?). So I decided to cut the bit of dragon in half lengthwise and use the back of one of the pieces. I wanted an accent in the middle (and didn’t have enough dragon), so I found some striped stretch fabric (also used for shirts before) to put in the centre. I also wanted to emulate this so I cut 4 cm lengths of ribbon and attached those at 5 cm intervals to the dragon that would be backwards. I sewed it all together, adding stitching along the centre stripes and edges to help it keep its shape. Then I affixed the closure with the sewing machine and done!

I’ll test drive it in the next few days, I may melt since I think it could be extremely warm, but we’ll see!