Out to Sea

Last August when Sarah Jane released her latest line, Out to Sea, I immediately snapped up a bundle of fabric to make a little quilt for my girls' classroom reading spot. It's taken me longer than I had planned, but I finally got around to it this weekend -- just in time, too, since this was my January project for the Lovely Year of Finishes sew along.

Now that my girls are all in regular beds, we had no need for the toddler beds that my two older daughters used to sleep in at night. I gave one to my sister for her girls to grow into and kept the other to use as a special reading nook in our classroom. The funny thing about toddler beds is that, in order for the quilt to fit the top of the bed without wrinkling up badly along the guardrails, it needs to be fairly narrow. Fortunately, I joined the x and + along this month, and when I saw the directions posted for a 24" block, everything fell into place. Two of these blocks together with a small border made a perfect fit for the top of our toddler bed. I bound the quilt in Skinny Vines in charcoal from Valentina -- another gorgeous collection which I hope to be sewing with soon.

I love the map print that Sarah Jane created for this collection -- perfect for so many different projects. I used a small piece of it for the pillow you see above in the top photo, and a lot more of it for the backing of the quilt along with pieces of several others.

I toyed with several different quilting ideas, but in the end I decided to keep it minimal for this design since there's so much going on with the prints. My girls are just crazy about these fun little mermaids.

The accent pillow I made to go with the quilt is as simple as can be. After using a full picture of the map for the front, I pieced together a few large scraps for the back, stuffed it and sewed it closed. It took me fifteen minutes at the most -- I love an easy finish!

Here they are in use. I had no idea when I picked these fabrics that they would perfectly match the wooden kitchen that we gave the girls for Christmas two years ago. I love having the world map above with their artwork hung in front of it on pieces of heavy twine. It's so much easier than trying to cram everything onto the refrigerator.

There were enough pieces left to also make a pillow cover for the daughter of one of my husband's coworkers.  I added a pocket to the front which will be fun for storing a book or doll, and it made a great place to put the birthday card. I love the Sea Flowers print on the sides of the pocket. There's a part of me that really wants to cover the chair in Mouse's room in that fabric...

If you haven't bought any of this collection yet, I highly recommend it. I thoroughly enjoyed playing with these fabrics over the weekend, and I'm looking forward to using my leftovers in some more scrappy projects in the weeks to come.

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday, Made By Me, and A Lovely Year of Finishes.