Dreaming under the Blue Ocean

As promised, here is the finally completed Blue Ocean Hawaiian Quilt.   The idea to make this quilt germinated in April 2008 on a trip to Kauai with the family.  I found a cool pattern and some great fabric on the island, then the whole thing languished in my closet for a couple of years. 

I found a couple of great YouTube tutorials by Leah Day on sewing the binding by machine (I guess "serious" quilters frown upon this and hand sew, but as mentioned before my philosophy is why do something by hand that can be done faster and probably better by machine).  Luckily I had enough of the applique fabric (dark blue) left over to make the binding.

sew across diagonally to join strips of binding

using a walking foot to attach the binding to the back of the quilt was very easy.

making sure to stop sewing 1/4 from the edge

Getting the binding turned over to the right side nicely to make the mitered corners was a bit trickier, the first one is a little wonky, but with practice and patience the rest came out OK.

Ready to turn over, using a machine blanket stitch on right side to "stitch in the ditch" and catch the back

I don't have any close up pictures of the completed mitered corners because they are only OK from the perspective of holding the edges together squarely and looking OK from distances greater than 2 feet, but they are not really ready for a prime time close up.

Now, it's done and hanging in a position of pride on the wall behind our bed.

Notice Misha in the picture, she insisted on being in the photo, she felt Tex was getting too much media attention and it was her turn to play the star  : )