Quilted Delights: sea turtle

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Get on Board Blog Hop

September is National Sewing Month, which you can read all about here:

https://www.nationalsewingmonth.org/

and Melva from Melva Loves Scraps and Brenda from Songbird Designs have been hosting the Get on Board Blog Hop to celebrate! They are also sponsoring a giveaway which you can read about at the end of the post.

I have been sewing since I was in middle school. My mom taught me how to use the machine and I made a few clothing items at home and in my home economics class in high school, but I didn't really get into till after I got married and started making clothes and costumes for my kids. I don't make very much clothing anymore, instead I spend most of my time making quilts! I am addicted to them, but every now and then I throw in a fun small project, such as this fun sea turtle!

The theme for this hop was anything tropical that inspired sewing so I went with this fun sea turtle pincushion and thread catcher. I love seas turtles and get super excited whenever I see one. I was lucky enough to see one just this Saturday!

It was a big one swimming a few yards away from the end of the pier and it came up several times for us to get a good look at it!

The pattern is by Jennifer Jangles and this hop was the perfect time to put this project at the top of my to do list.

The pattern has nice color photos and gives instructions to either attach the thread catcher permanently or make it removable. I hand stitched mine down. I have been needing a thread catcher to sit on my longarm and this cute little sea turtle will be the perfect thread catcher guardian.

The pattern calls for 1/4 yard of two different prints, but if you do some creative cutting you can get every piece from two Island Batik Stash Builder strips. Stash Builder strips are are 5 inches tall by 42 ish inches long.

I used a blue and green five inch strip I had on hand and they worked out perfectly.

The outer shell pattern piece says to place on the fold, but to make it fit on the 5 inch strip I cut two separate pieces and added a 1/4 seam allowance on the end. Then sewed it together to make one piece.

I pressed the seams open so it wouldn't be bulky and you can barely see the seam in the finished turtle.