Endangered Species – Sea Turtle Project

The 2021 Aurifil Color Builders are a capsule of 12 mini-collections dedicated to an incredibly worthy cause that falls in line with Aurifil’s goal to increase sustainability and positive environmental impact – Endangered Species. Each collection contains three large spools of their supple and strong 40 wt thread – a warm, a medium, and a dark.

The box of fabulous Aurifil thread that I received was none other than “Sea Turtle”. I have to say I was pretty scared about this project, but also excited that I received the Sea Turtle Collection.

The first thing I did was to do a Google search on Sea Turtles and see what I could find. There were some fun lessons on drawing sea turtles, but I couldn’t seem to make that work.

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I did keep on gravitating back to this cool clipart that was a free download.

After seeing this picture and checking my Island Batik Fabric stash, a plan was formed. I enlarged the picture to the size I needed, then I traced the designs and turtle body (using some of my own variations) onto Steam A Seam 2 Lite and then ironed it to the fabric of my choice.

Once I had that done, I had LOTS of pieces to cut out. At that point I was not sure I had made the correct decision…..lol!!! My Karen Kay Buckley scissors were wonderful for this though!!!

I used Island Batik Oatmeal for the base of the shell of the turtle.

Once I had the pieces ironed on to the turtle, I fused the entire turtle to the background fabric, which was a very soft turquoise/blue fabric, which I felt would reflect the turtle swimming in the water!!

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Now on to my favorite part…..the quilting. My plan was to secure all of these pieces down and quilt this all at the same time on my stationary longarm.

Since I was going to quilt this on my stationary longarm, I used two layers of Hobbs Cotton Fusible for this project.

When I auditioned the thread, I knew it was going to be perfect!!!

I was super excited to start using the Sea Turtle collection. I quilted this on my Handi Quilter Capri. Since I was going to be moving the fabric, my favorite way to control the fabric sandwich is by using my Machingers free motion quilting gloves.

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Once quilted and squared up, I decided that this quilt needed a faced binding.

All in all, I am in love with this piece and can’t wait to hang it where everyone can see it!!!

Disclaimer: I would like to thank the following companies for providing the products I used in this project: Island Batik, Aurifil Thread, and Hobbs Batting.

Please make sure to check out all my other fellow ambassadors and their projects!!!

Megan Best ~ Best Quilter
Pamela Boatright ~ PamelaQuilts
Elizabeth DeCroos ~ Epida Studio
Jennifer Eubank ~ Archipelago Quilting
Jennifer Fulton ~ The Inquiring Quilter
Preeti Harris ~ Sew Preeti Quilts
Joanne Hart ~ Unicorn Harts
Mania Hatziioannidi ~ Mania For Quilts
Jane Hauprich ~ Stitch By Stitch Custom Quilting
Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs
Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood
Denise Looney ~ For The Love Of Geese
Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights
Sally Manke ~ Sally Manke, Fiber Artist
Maryellen McAuliffe ~ Mary Mack Made Mine
Claudia Porter ~ Create with Claudia
Gail Renna ~ Quilt Haven Threads
Brianna Roberts ~ Sew Cute and Quirky
Michelle Roberts ~ Creative Blonde
Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail
Andi Stanfield ~ True Blue Quilts
Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations
Suzy Webster ~ Websterquilt
Janet Yamamoto ~ Whispers of Yore

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