Caribbean Dreamin'

For Mary's month (March) of the Not Your Grandma's Quilting Bee, she chose to have us make her beach themed blocks and was inspired by this quilt below made by oh-cherry-sew. I love LOVE love this quilt!



Drawing is not my greatest strength, so I went on flickr to find some inspiration photos with simple lines that I could manage to draw. Being that it is still freezing (yes, literally) here in New England, I thought I'd do a little Caribbean dreamin' and this is what I found:



Aren't the colors and lines of this house just FANTASTIC? Here is my very simple interpretation:

And I just adore this boat:




And here is what I created:

Mary sent us two 4.5" white center blocks and a few scraps of brightly colored batiks with Wonderunder fusible web attached. She simply asked us to make a raw edge fused beach cottage or any other beach themed design and then finish the block (using our own white fabric) to 12.5" using log cabin or any other style block we would like.

I used Kona PFD White and kept it very simple by adding white to the sides and then top and bottom. What a fantastic idea Mary! Sending out fabric for bees can be very costly and I didn't mind one bit adding some white from my stash to her blocks. I actually made the white blocks up before I added my fused fabrics.

There was no need to applique the fabrics to the block because she plans on quilting over the entire top, but I did do a little free motion drawing on my boat block in a light gray.

I have to say it is a little bitter sweet, as these are the last blocks I had to make for the Not Your Grandma's Quilting Bee! I am officially bee free ~ woohoo! Hmmm...I know I said I was done with bees, but I just might have to join one more to make one of these beach quilts! Ha ha, it is probably just a matter of time before I join another bee ;D

Happy quilting,
Colette