beach pow wow

i saw this pow wow quilt made out of seaside fabrics by october afternoon for riley blake hanging on the wall in ETC last december. love at first sight! i thought it was part of the ETC bucks auction, but it was just a sample. i kept waiting for it to go on sale but when i went to class in april, it was gone from the wall and no one could tell me what happened to it. i decided i'd just have to make it myself after all. there was a kit at the store.

 

but lucky me, the next week it showed up again and was for sale. unfortunately, the price was higher than i was hoping it would be. and when i couldn't talk them into taking the expired $50 ETC bucks i found in my studio last month (argh!!! - still makes me sick), i rebelled against the idea of paying for it. so i decided to just get the kit and add it to my "to do" pile. but when i added the cost of the kit, the backing and binding not included in the kit, and the batting, it was going to be the same price. that decided it for me. i just bought the dang thing. no point in doing it myself if it wasn't even going to save me money.

 

 

if i'd done it myself, i might have included more of the themed prints, like the children playing at the beach it's backed with. but i like the look of it the way it is just fine. my favorite fabric from the collection is this sweet tiny floral print in mint. it's soooo yummy. love the colors and the itty bitty blossoms. i did buy some yardage of that for an undetermined future project. maybe to go with the charm pack of this line i bought when it first came out. beach blanket?

 

i thought the quilting was a sort of swirly, water-like design, but my kids noticed it actually resembles turtles. loopy, swirly turtles. there are definitely tails, eyes, legs, and a shell. i bet louise did it. when i picked it up, i found out marti jones, the store owner, pieced the quilt. cool. i like knowing who made it.

 

my seaside pow wow has been added to the growing collection of "couch quilts" in my family room. they technically belong to me, but they are draped on the couches for anyones use whilst in that room. i now have 3: pow wow, the abbey lane diamond quilt i used my ETC bucks for at the auction, and my "out on a limb" quilt. i hope to soon have more of my own make in here. in the meantime, i just love having handmade quilts in the room no matter who made them. they get cuddled and used for forts all the time.

"beach pow wow" is already getting a lot of use around here. baby wanted to play peek-a-boo with it this morning right after breakfast (before she got dressed for the day). every time we tried to take her out of it, she threw a fit.

it also makes the perfect sling for her older sibs to carry her around in or use for the classic swinging and toss up the baby games. (don't worry, there was no tossing her over the tiles, just carrying her from one room to the next.) lovin' it.