Rhonda Bracey: At Random

And after finishing the second turtle quilt, I made another one! This one will go to my nephew as they’re having a baby in a few months’ time.

This time, I used the same raw edge applique and shading techniques I’d used in the second one, but with much more contrasting fabrics. I think this one is my favourite of the three.

For the quilting, I stitched bubbles all over the background, emulating the round shapes on the pretty aqua batik fabric. The top fabric was a deep pink/purple/blue wavy leaf pattern, which I shaded with a deep purple Copic marker. The quilting in the border was sort of seaweed/kelp-like.

(The Herd of Turtles pattern I used is available from here: https://www.pacificrimquilt.com/2faq/)

Threads used:

• Gutermann Sulky (40 wt viscose/rayon, colour #2201 [silvery cream, pale blue variegated])
• Wonderfil Mirage (30 wt, colour SD 09 [variegated deep pink/red/purple])

I wanted to try another turtle quilt using the Herd of Turtles pattern (available from here: https://www.pacificrimquilt.com/2faq/), but this time using the raw edge applique technique. This method was much quicker for me, and I saved even more time (and a lot of anguish!) by NOT cutting out the areas around the sections on the carapace. Instead, I got out the Copic markers I’d purchased when I was in the US, and shaded the carapace sections to give the illusion of dimension. I was quite pleased with how the shading turned out. I had the green jelly roll fabric I’d made up a few weeks ago and that I didn’t particularly like, so I used that as the background, and for the turtles I used one of the metre-long batik lengths I’d bought in Bali last September. Because this is raw edge applique and because this is a quilt likely to be hung in a child’s room or used for a child, I wanted to stitch down those raw edges a bit more securely, so I used the same thread I’d used for the raw edge and stitched those edges down using a blanket stitch. Finally, I added some wavy kelp using a fluoro lime green thread, then followed the waviness of the kelp into the border.

Turtle with Copic marker shading done, including shading on the overlap with other turtles.Kelp stitched too.

Shading done with Copic markers

Without the shading, the turtle’s carapace was ‘flat’, but I wasn’t going to cut out those tiny sections between each hexagonal shape!

Border detail – flames to emulate wavy kelp

Detail of the shading, kelp, blanket stitch edge over the raw applique edge, and the binding

Doing the shading with the brush end of the Copic marker

Turtle without any shading

Threads used:

• Fil-Tec Glide ‘Peach’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour #50473)
• Mettler Poly Sheen (40 wt, polyester, colour #5940 [fluoro lime green])