You may recall back before Christmas I had started on a shoal of Folksy Fish from Sarah Elizabeth Sharp’s foundation paper piecing pattern. Well I somehow impressed the author enough that she invited me onto the blog hop for her new book, Adventures In Paper Piecing & Design, and I jumped at the chance to play along! If you read all my ramblings about it, you’ll get a chance to win your own copy to witter on about too :oD

This is a fabulous book that not only provides you with a bunch of patterns to make funky foundation paper pieced quilts based on Sarah’s patterns, but it also shows you how to create your own funky FPP patterns.

Given that I was already working on the aforementioned Folksy Fish, I was really hoping to dive into the Folksy Friends in the book so I could have a more diverse ocean, but more important people bagged that first ;o) So in the end I plumped for the design prompt ‘Traditional With A Twist’. Those fish were still in my mind though, so I hope you don’t mind, but I went for… (say what you see)

Because everyone needs a starfish in their life, right? My first challenge was to find a fish to create my central pattern, and Google did not let me down. This fish was only discovered for the first time in June 2017 off the coast of Brazil, and it’s neon, actually neon! In fact the researchers that found it were so mesmerised, they nearly missed the shark that crept up on them…

Coincidentally Pennie, of @tuppencehapennyquilts had just had a bundle of neon Kona delivered from Quilt Essential, so I cheekily asked her for the colours, then threw in a bunch more to be on the safe side:

In case you’re wondering, that’s (not in pictured order): Acid Lime, Azure, Bright Idea, Bright Pink, Cantaloupe, Geranium, Highlight, Jamaica, Key Lime, Orangeade, Pink Flamingo, Pomegranate, Pool, Sassy Pink, Sprout, Tiger Lilly and Wasabi.

Having ordered the fabric, I set about making up my pattern. Sarah does a great job in the book showing how to create your own pattern from a photo, so I blew up the fish in Adobe Illustrator and set about it (you can absolutely use paper and pencil for this part) I then clearly forgot the golden rule about flipping it, so my fish swims to the right!

When it came to sewing it together I decided to stick with the black background, threw in blue for the star points to kind of imply water, and then quilted the star and background in dense, straight lines in 40wt Aurifil thread. Although not obvious in the picture it’s kind of shimmery. On the black around the fish I free motion quilted pebbles, but I left the fish unquilted because it’s relatively small and all the seams would have left it prone to being a bit wobbly.

It’s actually a cushion cover, but for some reason the cushion forms I thought were 18″ x 18″ were smaller, so just imagine this nicely filled out ;o)

Now don’t forget to check out the other stops on the book hop to see the other amazing creations both from and inspired by the book:

07/01 – #plantladyquilt (@crimsontate | @myquiltdiet)
08/01 – #graffitiFPP (@nohatsquilts) 
09/01 – #designprompt1 – Learning by the Letter (@giucy_giuce) 
10/01 – #snoozequilt (@materialgirlquilts | @karleeporterdesign) 
11/01 – #designprompt2 – Traditional with a Twist (@the_littlest_thistle) 
12/01 – #pricklypathquilt (@eyecandyquilts | @alisonglass)
14/01 – #designprompt3 – Objects (@littleislandquilting) 
15/01 – #voodoofeathercushion  (@jennifersampou) 
16/01 – #designprompt4 – Creatures (@playcrafts) 
17/01 – #folksyfriendsquilt (@raquelsews | @kathleenquilts)
18/01 – #designprompt5 – Think Outside the (Square) Block (@wombatquilts) 
19/01 – #firefliesquilt (@cera.bee | @rachaeldorr)
20/01 – Sunday Book Review! (@sarahashfordstudio) 
22/01 – #designprompt6 – Repeat Designs (@allisonsews) 
23/01 – #jungleviewquilt (@123bluejumper) 
24/01 – #designprompt7 – Single FPP (@jamiemswansonquilts) 
25/01 – #doublediamondweddingring(@elisabew | @practicaldazzle)
26/01 – Recap and Photography (@nohatsquilts | @ericlubrick)

So would you like to win your own copy? If so, then pop over to my instagram feed (click on the pictures at the bottom of the page or go to my profile and click on the photo of my project), follow me @the_littlest_thistle and @nohatsquilts, and leave a comment below telling me what picture you’d like to turn into an FPP pattern. Tag as many friends as you’d like for additional chances to win – open internationally until midnight GMT on Friday 18th January, winner drawn at random. #adventuresbooktour