Going Coastal Quilt Complete

When I saw Emily Herrick's Going Coastal fabric line, I knew I had to make a quilt out of it for my dad, who is obsessed with beaches, Lake Michigan, and all things nautical. And when I saw the Scrappy Triangles tutorial from Ashley of Film In the Fridge, I knew I had to make it out of Going Coastal. And so this quilt was born!

Truth be told, I had this stack of fabric for a long time before I was able to get to this project. I wanted to make it as a Christmas gift, but sadly I just didn't have time around the holidays. So when my dad offered to drop everything and drive four hours to babysit the girls for several days while the hubs and I went to Arizona, I knew this quilt's time had come! It would make the perfect thank-you gift.

The scrappy triangle blocks came together quickly and easily thanks to Ashley's tutorial. And there are absolutely no seams to match up, making this a fun, low-stress project—gotta have one of those every once in a while! This is a relatively small block (6.5" by 9" after trimming), and I needed 84 of them to get the size I wanted, so I strip-pieced them. I sewed together strip sets that were about 12.5" long, allowing me to cut three triangles from each set—two triangles facing one direction and one triangle facing the other direction. I really churned these out using that method!

I added a few stash prints to my triangles, to round out the Going Coastal prints. You can spot a few Multi Pez prints in there, and I added some red stash prints as well—I wanted a lot of red, to keep the nautical theme going. The background is Free Spirit Solid Arctic White, and I did a scrappy binding using mostly GC scraps. I don't often do scrappy bindings, but this quilt seemed to call for one.

For the back, I used my favorite Going Coastal prints: The bottle caps and the madras plaid. I'm not usually that big on novelty prints, but you have to love these, right? Every once in a while, there's a fabric collection that really transports me to a particular time and/or place, and Going Coastal is one of those collections. Some of these prints may not be the most versatile stash prints, but every time I look at this line, I can practically smell the salt air. I love it when fabric design can do something like that.

So, I'm totally picturing this quilt spread out on a sandy beach, with a frosty bucket of Coronas sweating nearby. Hopefully it will get to do that someday. : ) I know they are planning to take it to their sailboat this summer, which is kinda perfect too. Enjoy, Dad!