Skip to main content

Shark Cushion [A finish]

I have a nephew who loves sharks. So what would any good Aunty do? They'd make him a shark cushion of course. No friendly cartoon sharks here. Oh no! I great big scary realistic great white of course! I bought the foundation piecing pattern from Quilt Art Design and I have to confess that when I printed it out in October, ready to make it for his birthday, I looked at it, swore, and put it away. Hell no! But I don't like to be beaten, and whilst it wasn't done for his birthday I decided to give it a go for Christmas. It was a spur of the moment decision really. I thought "I really should make that cushion" and before I had time to change my mind, I cut out the pattern pieces and found the fabric. And once I had it laid out on the table I took another look, and queried my sanity again....


But foundation piecing is all the same.... just sew the next seam... piece the next section, and gradually it grows and you wonder what all the fuss was about. Right? The first evening I decimated half a metre of the blue background but got all the edge sections pieced. The second evening I worked on the body. And the third day was the teeth. It's just another seam...just another seam. Until those seams are barely four stitches long and the resulting pieces nearly require a magnifying glass to be seen.

But you know what, the sections went together well, and before I knew it I had a 20" shark. Picking out the paper can be a bit of a chore, so I helped my friend Tina baste a quilt and she helped pick the papers out... she left me the teeth....


I did some basic wavy line quilting and used a fab shark print from @sewhot for the back. No zips in seams here - just a regular zip across the back. Upside-down, but he won't notice.



And I think he liked it - my sister-in-law sent me a picture of him watching TV the next week with the cushion, so I'll take that! This was a finish from my Q4 finish along list. You can find my original list here.
  finishalong logo 125px
Labels:

Comments

Emily said…
Wow, this is so fun! My 6-year-old is in a big shark phase; I better not let him see this! Hope your nephew loves it!
30 December 2019 at 02:38
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

365 Quilt Challenge 2016 [A finish]

I can't believe I've just typed that heading! When I made the block for January 1st 2016 I could not have imagined the journey this quilt would have taken me on. So make yourselves comfortable and grab a cup of tea, because this blog post may get lengthy! I'd seen the 365 Quilt Challenge on Facebook. I think every quilter on Facebook must have been aware of it. Loads of my friends had signed up and it kept popping up as a "Page you might like" thing. In the end, in November 2015, I joined the group, had a poke round. Decided it wasn't for me. One of the things that really put me off were the fabric requirements: you needed x amount of dark dark fabric, x amount of medium dark fabric, x amount of dark medium, medium, light medium, light, background.... I just couldn't get my head round those requirements. I'd looked at the mock ups on the wesbite and couldn't bring myself to pick a colour. I put it to the back of my mind. But I had obvious
6 comments
Read more

Hidden Agenda [A Finish]

This is very possibly my favourite ever finish - I know I've said that in the past, but this one is going to be hard to beat. This time last year, I attended a day long lecture/workshop with Tula Pink and it was inspiring. Having not really loved her fabrics in the past (but loved her patterns), I suddenly saw them in a new light, linked with my 2018 new year's resolution to try more fussy cutting). Fast forward 8 months and I confess that my Tula stash has expanded quite a lot. I found some UK shops with older ranges of fabric, splurged on a few destashes and found the odd piece of her fabric already in my stash. The plan was always (and remains) to make a Smitten quilt, but I'm well aware that I have plenty of fabric to make other projects as well! So when I saw the Hidden Agenda quilt pattern by Angela Pingle, this fabric sprung instantly to mind.... and we all know I love a rainbow! And what could be better than rainbowfied Tula? I was ably assisted by my friend Ti
3 comments
Read more

February Embroidery Along [A Finish]

I've really been enjoying my embroidery this year, after not doing very much last year. One of the challenges I set myself at the start of the year was to learn to colour tint my fabric before adding the embroidery - I love buying the pre-printed panels, but I'd like to do this myself as well. And the opportunity to learn this arose in February. Meg Hawkey of Crab Apple Hill Studio hosted a stitchalong to celebrate National Embroidery Month, and the first step was colour your fabric. I bought the pencils she advises,  the blending stumps, something called fabric extender and the pigma pen. And I gave it a go. My first attempt ended badly. Because the one thing I didn't buy was a new, clean paintbrush. So when I came to add the fabric extended, it went all bleary and muddy as, despite cleaning the paintbrush thoroughly, it obviously wasn't clean enough. It was unsalvageable so I started again, and I was so much happier with the results. The practice piece was, in
1 comment
Read more

Labels

Show more

Archive

Show more