Follow my tutorial, on how to make an Ocean Waves Quilt. These beautiful fabrics are from the new collection ‘Explore the Oceans’ and is The Craft Cotton Co's latest collaboration with The Natural History Museum, they are all available from Craft Cotton, and also available to purchase in Fat Quarter packs at Hobbycraft.
Please read through all the instructions before starting your project.
Approx. finished size 34" x 40"
Materials
‘Explore the Ocean’ panel
2 FQ’s teal solid fabric - waves
2 FQ’s sky blue solid fabric - waves
2 FQ’s whales on navy blue fabric - waves
2 FQ’s boats on white fabric – waves4+
2 FQ’s of lilac solid fabric
FQ penguins on teal fabric
½ metre of cotton denim fabric
½ metre of fish on white fabric
½ metre of white boats on blue fabric
Cot size pack of heritage premium wadding
Gutermannthreads in blue # 1292 and lilac #158
Guterman sulky thread in torquiose for the quilting #1288
Haberdashery items
Iron-away marker pen
Quilters ruler, rotary cutter/scissors
Iron
Cutting mat
Basic sewing supplies
505 basting spray or pins
Waves templates
Clover white marker pen
Making the Waves
Cut two 1 ½” squares from a solid FQ and two 1 ½” squares from a patterned FQ, sew one of each fabric with RST using ¼” seam allowance, press seams towards darker fabric.
Nest the seam together to create a 2 ½” block, press.
Cut four of the smallest triangles using the template, two from each of the fabrics used for the above block.
Sew the same coloured triangle to the top of the block which is the same colour as the top left square, press. Repeat this process for the remaining two triangles.
Continue using this method, adding triangles and pressing after every addition, until you reach a 6 ½” block.
Continue making the wave blocks until you have:
3 teal with white whales on navy
4 teal with boats on white
4 blue with boats on white
4 blue with white whales on navy
The blocks can now be joined together to create the top quilt
Top Quilt
Sew two wave blocks (teal and navy) together.
From the cotton denim cut two 1 ½” x 6 ½” pieces, and sew a strip to either side of the wave block.
Repeat for the two waves blocks – blue and navy.
Cut four further strips from the denim cotton measuring 1 ¾” x 14 ½”, and sew with RST to the top and bottom of the two wave blocks.
Take the panel, cut blue whale, fish, boat on teal and the penguins to make four blocks, measuring 9” x 6 ¾”.
Sew the two teal panel pieces to either side of the blue/navy wave block.
Then sew the two blue panels to either side of the teal/navy wave block.
Trim so these measure 8 ¾” x 26 ½”.
Complete these two rows by sewing an 8 ¾” x 4 ¼” pieces to either side, these can be put aside for now.
From the panel cut the word ‘explore’ to measure 17 ¾” x 5 ¾”
From the lilac solid fabric cut two 1” x 5 ¾” and two 1” x 18 ½”
Sew these to the ‘explore’ panel, press, and leave to one side.
Take three wave blocks, and sew together– see photo below.
From the denim cotton, cut two pieces, each measuring 1 ½” x 18 ½”, and sew to the top and bottom of the 3-wave block.
Repeat this for the following three wave blocks – shown in photo below.
Take the ‘explore’ block, and sew these two-wave block, above and below.
Cut a further two strips from the denim cotton, measuring 1 ½” x 22 ½”, and sew to each side of the ‘explore’ block.
To complete this block, cut two strips from the denim cotton measuring 1 ½” x 6 ½” and sew one to the right-hand side of a single wave block – blue/navy.
Sew the other to the left-hand side of the remaining blue/navy wave block.
Cut four pieces from the denim cotton measuring 7 ½” x 8 ½” and sew one to the top and bottom of each wave.
These two panels can now be sewn to either side of the ‘explore’ block.
Sew the two waves strips you put aside from earlier to the top and bottom of the ‘explore’ panel.
Cut two strips from the denim cotton measuring ½” x 33 ¾”, and sew to the top and bottom of the top quilt.
The top quilt is now complete, baste this to a 34” x 42” piece of wadding.
To make the backing, lay the boats on blue fabric out, and cut a horizontal piece measuring 20 ½” x 34”.
Cut a piece 15” x 34” from the fish on white fabric.
Fussy cut two identical pieces from the penguins on teal fabric, measuring 8” x 6 ½” each (vertical).
Take the remaining three waves block (blue/white) and sew together.
Sew a penguin piece to either side of the waves, to create a horizontal strip.
Sew the fish to the top and boats to the bottom of the wave strip.
The backing quilt is complete, baste to the other side of the wadding.
To quilt, use a Free Motion Quilting foot on your machine with Gutermann sulky thread #1288.
Quilt around the ‘explore’ letters.
Use the clover white pen and the fish templates, draw four fish on the denim fabric which sits between the three waves block and the two waves block.
Also draw one large fish and four smaller fish on the large denim pieces. Quilt over these markings.
Trim the quilt and press well.
Cut 1 ¼” strips from the lilac fabric, join these together to create binding.
Sew to the front of the quilt.
Press ¼” of the raw edge over, and hand sew to the reverse.
The quilt is complete.
This ‘Ocean Waves’ Quilt and tutorial has been designed and created by Michelle at creativeblonde.
To see more of my tutorials, you can follow my blog and/or Instagram page and Facebook
Stockist for the fabrics and wadding found in this tutorial
www.craftcotton.com 0161 832 9431
Stockist for Gutermann threads
gutermann@stockistenquiries.co.uk 01453 883581
Made by Michelle Roberts for The Cotton Company 2019