Submitted by Sandie Griego on Fri, 12/21/2012 - 19:15
My hubby and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary with a two week trip to Hawaii. We spent a week of the vacation on a cruise where we were able to visit several of the islands. I scoped out a quilt shop on one of the islands that had this cute quilt kit. I am traditionally not a kit fan but the border fabric is a batik made especially for this shop and this quilt. It has swimming turtles in the print. We went snorkeling and swam with sea turtles. It was so much fun.
I brought the kit home and it was promptly put on the back burner because of deadlines I had to meet. It made it's way out of the closet when I was able to attend a 4 day quilt retreat. The turtles are dimensional. Each turtle on the quilt is actually two pieces of fabric stitched together in the turtle shape and turned right side out. The turtle shell is the same technique. After making all the turtles and turtle shells, they are then appliqued down on the square of fabric. When the turtles and shells are stitched to the background fabric, I only stitched around the shell, which left the turtle's head, tail, and legs free to move freely. 
The blue wave block moving through the quilt was paper pieced. Borders were added and my friend Pam Seeger quilted it for me.
I finished the quilt with a piped binding which has become my very favorite way to bind a quilt.
This has become a favorite keepsake from my Hawaii vacation, but truth be told, it will probably end up with a grandchild.