Beach Huts Wall Hanging


Back in June my little sister Kaeli came to town for a visit. She's such a fun sidekick. And she's good at decorating too. Since I had just moved into a new house with no decor to speak of, that's what we decided to do...decorate the kids rooms and their bathroom. We planned projects galore. We shopped a LOT. I seriously think the cashiers at TJMaxx were like, "You're here again???" Anyway...we decided on a beach theme for the kids bathroom and we scored lots of great stuff. We found cute coral and white polka dot towels, darling coral and white geo rugs, and some great stuff for this random shelf on one side of the mirror:


Kaeli and I were so proud of this shelf. (The clock is from Hobby Lobby, glass jars from Michael's and the shells and sign from TJ). But after putting everything in its place, we still had one bare wall. So I looked around online a bunch for a cool beach themed sign -- I was actually thinking beach huts, but I couldn't find anything in the right colors. So, that's about the time when I remembered that I was a quilter, and I could just whip up a cute quilted wall hanging. I know, why didn't it occur to me sooner? So I pulled some fabric from the stash and whipped up this little wall hanging! 


I looked at a lot of beach hut themed fabric and art for ideas and then mocked these up in Inkscape. 


I decided on solids for the huts and random prints for the doors and embellishments. That made it fun to give the huts some texture with thread. I made all the huts first and then attached them to the quilted background. I used lots of zig-zag stitches rather than my usual blanket stitch because I wanted it to feel a tiny bit more shabby. Not sure that I accomplished that. 

 

This is the second background I made for the quilt. The first had a solid blue for the sky and the same for the sand, but once I quilted it, I was not in love with the quilting I had chosen. So, I scrapped the first one and tried again. The clouds were made from a pantograph, and the grid was drawn on first with a water soluble marker and then quilted using a ruler. Luckily the second attempt was better. 


For the second one, I also decided to add this little sand castle and shells. I kind of love it. I thought about adding a bucket and shovel too, but I didn't want to get too crazy :) I found a picture online that I liked, printed it the right size, and traced it onto the fabric with a water-soluble marker. Quilting it was interesting because those little shells are tiny and I had to go over almost everything twice so it would show up! 


Also added some seagulls. I think I did that lower one like 3 times and I kept messing it up, so finally I just left it. ;)


And here it is in it's place of honor in the girls bathroom! Kinda fun! And the girls like it. :) I may eventually get a cute hanger for it, but I think it's good for now.