Ocean Breeze, a Storm at Sea for Island Batik

Welcome to my day on Island Batik's Storm at Sea Blog Hop!  Each Island Batik Ambassador was given one of the newest Island Batik collections, due in stores this December, and instructed to make some form of Storm at Sea quilt.  I was sent the Petals Provence collection by Kathy Engle, a lovely mix of bright yellows and blues. 

I could not have done this challenge without EQ8.  Storm at Sea can look so different depending on color placement.  I used EQ to finalize design and fabric placement.  While a traditional Storm at Sea is made with square-in-a-square blocks, the Snail's Trail block is really similar, it just adds a 4-patch to the center-most square.  Since I have Accuquilt's Snail's Trail block and I like the look of Storm at Sea mixed with Snail's Trail, I started with that.  My original design had a lot of Snail's Trail's blocks, but I was worried it read too Snail's Trails and not enough Storm at Sea, so I settled for just four Snail's Trail blocks.

Center on my "design wall, " actually a sheet taped in the hallway

 
The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, Studio 180 Design, Accuquilt, Schmetz, & Hobbs.

circle quilting

I really liked the sort of flower petal look I got with fabric placement, so I added the basic Opalescence for just a touch of color beyond blue & yellow. The outer border & binding are a blender called Blue Branch, the other 17 fabrics in the quilt are from Petals Provence.  I cut the Snail's Trail blocks and the square-in-a-square units with my Accuquilt Go and used the diamond rects tool from Studio 180 design for the diamond/rectangle units.  I used Hobbs 80/20 batting (my favorite) and quilted a large spiral with Aurifil 50 weight thread in color 2770, very light delft. I did all the piecing and quilting with Schmetz needles.  

perfect picnic spot

I think this looks like gentle ocean breezes and warm sunshine so I named it Ocean Breeze.  It measures about 56" square.  Many of the ambassadors took their Storm at Sea quilts to ocean or water for photographs.  I did take mine on vacation--to the mountains!  I like to sew binding on car trips and this went with me on my anniversary trip last month.  In fact, you can see the clips in some of these photos, indicating that I was in a good spot for pictures but hadn't quite finished the binding yet.  So no ocean pictures for me, but hopefully the fall foliage in the Blue Ridge will do instead.

Be sure to hop over and visit Maryellen at Mary Mack Made Mine and see what she made with the same Petals Provence collection.  I have really enjoyed seeing all the different Storm at Sea quilts, and there is still another week left in the hop!