Since the Polar Bear Country ebook is a bit of a departure for me, it’s not just embroidery patterns (!), I thought I’d share a little look inside the book to give you an idea what it’s like. Don’t forget that you can save 15% until Sunday, April 29. Please see the bottom of this post for the details.
This is the first project in the book. It has four polar animal embroidery patterns and the instructions for making this wall hanging. With each project you get a list of the materials needed. The measurements are given in both inches and centimetres.
It’s funny, when I first started sewing years ago, I did everything in centimetres. I was very stubborn about that for some weird reason. Now, I guess because I’ve done more quilting, I ‘think’ mostly in inches. Anyway….
This cushion project really has turned out to be one of my favourites. I had finished the embroidery a long time ago and when it came to actually doing something with it, I was at a bit of a loss for some reason. But then I remembered the cushion project I made for Romantic Motifs and that has sections with very narrow strips of fabric and I remembered that I really loved making those. So I wanted to do something similar but different.
It is quite time consuming, sewing all the tiny strips together for this border, but I guess I’m weird because I really enjoy it. :-)
However, if you don’t enjoy sewing together fiddly skinny strips, there are alternative instructions for making a border using striped fabric instead. I have tried to add suggestions for alternatives in the projects wherever it was appropriate – and if I had space for it. The book was at over 80 pages at one point! I thought the final 73 was quite enough. ;-)
I friggin’ love this quilt. Is it ok to say that? I love the limited colour palette and the scrappy look and the whales that help it not feel too busy. Blake loves it too, he has already taken to sleeping on it in the evening.
You’ll see this again next week, because I have made another version of it, to test the pattern. The colours for the second are quite different as you will see.
Some of the projects have drawings to help visualize each step. Here’s an example of that, for the Whales quilt above.
The book has a few extra motifs/templates which I didn’t use in the finished project(s). For example, I made two table mats, but then I thought it’d be nice to have a set of four different ones, so I added two extra motifs.
The whales, as used in the quilt, are just outlines, but the template is actually my original drawing with eyes and mouth etc so they can be used as embroidery patterns. You know, in case you want to embroider a narwhal. And who doesn’t? They’re the unicorn of the sea, after all. Speaking of which, until a few years ago, Tony thought the narwhal was a made up creature just like the unicorn, what?! ;-D
I wanted to add as many options for your projects as possible in the space I had. One rule I had for the projects was that there would be no having to scale things up or down or print several sheets to tape together. Because who wants to mess around with that when you just want to get on a sew stuff? ;-)
The whale quilt is awesome!! Thank you for more great designs!