I found the Leatherback Sea Turtle outline surfing through some free clipart. I simplified the design and added some detail into the carapace (aka shell) to guide my later addition of the fabric.
I used MistyFuse and traced my outline on it. The basic design is simply the sea turtle in a empty field. From there, you use fabric that is shredded into small pieces to make the design. I choose to use two very different colorways on the same image.
The second one (blue-purple) has tulle over parts of it. At the bottom, there are several layers of tulle to simulate the light and dark of water and cut away some from the carapace (aka turtle shell). I really liked the layers of tulle and the texture it added. This is a much cooler ocean for this turtle. The darks are darker and the light are whitish. This colorway represents the cold, deep ocean where this species spends most of the year foraging far and wide (in fact, they are the most wide ranging species of sea turtles). They forage on jellyfish and turn bright red from the nematocycts (painful stingy things), hence, the red-orange body in this version. The little circle around the neck are suggested of those plastic things used to keep soda cans together. All sea creatures are at risk of entanglement and death from those horrible things.
After completing the centers, I added a border around each (log-cabin style) and then added a backing and some batting (just for the look of it). I used some of my built-in stitches to make the border more textural on the blue-purple. The 'binding' is three strands of some fuzzy wool yarn with a wide zigzag over it. I cut the yarn to the estimated length for the perimeter of the quilt and then simply held it while I zipped around. I overlapped the two ends and simply zigzaged over them. I ended up going over the yarn twice as I liked the look of the stitches closer together. The thread was the same basic color as the yarn. Finished sizes are around 8x8 or so.
The book by Susan Carlson is very well written with clear diagrams and instructions. She gives a lot of information and does not dwell on the 'how to quilt' basics that seem to be de rigour in the first few chapters of most books. She spends the right amount of time on design and methods. Her work is stunning, especially when you know that she actually draws all her designs in addition to the fabric work. I used a full-size iron to fuse the fabric to the Mistyfuse. This was a mistake. I would very strongly recommend one of those small crafting irons. Your finger tips will thank you.
I love to try new things and challenge myself with quilting. This was that, so for the process quilter that I am, it was perfect.
While I enjoyed the journey of this, I did not really love keeping track of all the bits of fabric. I ended up with 30 sandwich bags filled with individual fabrics in 'chips.' This seemed to just add to my organization challenges for my very small crafting space. I also had to keep fighting off my cat who kept looking at me like, "oh...how nice, you made all these fluttery play toys for me. Yippee" as she did kamikaze runs across my work table to watch the fabric chips fall to the floor.
But, I say this was worth it as an artistic push for me and, maybe, others.
Tomorrow, I'm off to a free motion quilting course at my local quilting store, Wayside Sewing (Marlborough, MA). Lovely owner, great show and great location. This will be my first official lesson in free motion since I took a basic how-to a few years back. From the sample, it looks like there will be some use of chalked on designs. Looking forward to it.
If you want to read more about Leatherbacks Sea Turtles, check out National Geographic's website http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/leatherback-sea-turtle/
For information about Leatherback rescue work, check out Leatherback.org
http://www.leatherback.org/pages/rescue.htm
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