Beach Jewels

We've been super lucky to be able to live near two beaches, Kodiak, AK and Sandy Hook, NJ. So far away from each other and so very different. But each had smooth beautiful colorful beach glass to hunt for. Once again I was inspired to make a quilt. My very talented niece of Kathryn Peters Photography helped me capture the dreamy colors of this quilt back in my home state of Alabama. Next to a fluffy cotton field! So southern and so beautiful. The things we quilters can make with cotton. :) Her photos are amazing!! 

Love the sunshine peaking through the quilt & the pecan tree up in the corner joining the party.

kspphotograhpy.com

So here's the typical loot we could find and bring home. There were many more colors in Alaska. Somewhere tucked away are the really rare bits of red and pink. The sand in Kodiak is dark! It's formed from the volcanic rock that the 

island is made of. It's got bits of white in it too so I wanted to add some black and white fabric along with the blues and greens. My favorites. 

I bought this black and white fabric years ago. I could only find a few fat quarters. So sad, I love it! I'm seeing the simple line drawings like this show up in fabric by designers more and more. Yay!! 

The sands back in New Jersey were much lighter. One special piece we found has New York molded into it. 

The handmade net floats are the real deal. You can find them washed up on the shores of remote beaches in Alaska. 

I hand quilted the center portion with Perle cotton and used this beautiful variegated Aurifil thread to continue the chevron design with machine quilting all around the center of the quilt. Bound the quilt with fans from Good Fortune collection. And how fortunate we were to be able to walk the beaches with our  young ones and look for beach jewels all year long. And yes, those beaches are cold in the winter! Had to use to black & white snowflake fabric on the back along with this polka dot fabric.

Keeping the squirrels out.

We've got more squirrels here than any other place we've lived. Plenty of acorns for them too. Though I hear someone nearby feeds them corn. Ugh! Can't plant anything without them coming to investigate. By that I mean digging out your carefully planted flowers, plants, and shrubs just as soon as you leave the yard!!

I have found one thing that slows them down quite a bit is dried sago palm fronds. Those palms are painful when they are green and even worse when they're dried. The squirrels don't like to mess with them. So we keep one sago palm (not my favorite shrub) around just for mulch. 

Happy  Gardening!