Introducing Whale's Tail

I’m so happy to be introducing the Whale’s Tail quilt to the world today! Exploring quilt design has led me down many paths, one of which has been discovering all the amazing shapes you can create with curves. These simple quarter circle blocks have been blowing my mind! This Whale’s Tail design is quite literally inspired by the whales I am very occasionally lucky enough to see around these parts. We are thrilled when we get to see the backs or hear the blow holes, but a tail sighting is the most exciting of all. 

You can grab this pattern for 20% off during launch week! Sale ends July 14th, 2023. Shop now!

Whale’s Tail is a beautiful reminder to dive deep! The repeated curved blocks throughout this design create calming and fluid movement. Use ocean-themed colors or go bold with bright prints. Whale’s Tail comes in five sizes: pillow, wall hanging, baby, throw, and bed. 

Whale’s Tail is a great intro pattern for sewing curves. This design includes curved templates that you will print out and use to cut your fabric. You will be surprised by how quick and easy it is to make this design! 

As always, a comprehensive PDF instruction booklet will provide you with the information you need to successfully complete this quilt. I promise that sewing curves is not that scary, and it can open up a whole new world of possibilities.

​​Whale’s Tail looks great with a gradient of colors, but it also works well with random color placement. You can stack your gradient from top to bottom or bottom to top to get different results. Both light and dark backgrounds look great! Prints (including directional prints) also work well. You can play around with the colour layout for this quilt over on QuiltInk!

We used all Art Gallery Pure Solids for our quilt samples. Here are the fabrics used so you can re-create the sample quilts! If you want to purchase a kit, check out Piece Fabric Co!

We recently took a trip to Tofino for my birthday this past Spring, and I knew it would be the perfect location to get pictures of this design. We spent an afternoon battling the wind and rain one of my favourite beaches to get these shots and it was soooo worth it. I love seeing this design against the backdrop of the sea and sand, and we found a cute cove that had cedar trees draping over onto the beach.

Selecting the backings for the samples is always one of my favourite parts. It’s so fun to choose a large scale print or a complimentary design. For the wall hanging size, I chose a whimsical boat print with moons and stars and clouds.

For the throw size, I found the PERFECT fabric for this design and it felt like it tied the whole collection of samples together. This watercolour landscape-esque print has all my favourite colours in it and I just love the way it works with the bold pieced top and the wavy quilting lines. This fabric is by Shell Rummel and it is called "Sunrise to Sunset" from the collection "Touchstones". I’m almost as into the back of this quilt as I am into the front!

We opted not to bring the bed sized quilt along with us to the beach because it is just so big! We would need a very large frame to hold it and the chances of it getting sandy and wet were too high. I was able to take some great shots of it in our guest bedroom, though! Pictured here is a king sized bed for reference. 

The throw and bed sized samples were quilted by Shelly from Ma Tante Quilting and she did an incredible job. I wanted water-themed pantos so I chose “Good Vibrations” for the throw and “Harbour Wave” for the bed. We decided to go big with harbour wave to match the large scale of the piecing. I love that Whale’s Tail has so much open space for the quilting to really shine. 

For the pillow and wall hanging sizes, I did the quilting myself. I wanted to try following the lines of the Whale’s Tail on at least one of the samples so I tried that on the wall hanging. I love how it turned out! It’s not perfect because the further I got from the center, the more off the lines got, but I think it has a lot of character and I would definitely try this again on a future quilt. 

For the pillow, I went with horizontal matchsticks. I love all this texture on a throw pillow! It’s really satisfying to touch. On the backside, I ended up doing another quilted panel so this pillow is reversible. I had leftover fabrics and was feeling inspired! This block is one I am working on for an upcoming design.

You can grab this pattern for 20% off during launch week! Sale ends July 14th, 2023. Shop now!

I hope you are feeling as inspired by Whale’s Tail as I am! I loved piecing all the samples for this pattern because the design is simple but still so satisfying. Even this large bed sized quilt only took me about 5 hours to cut and piece! Now that is a quick quilting project. I can’t wait to see what you make with Whale’s Tail!