Summer Time and Revisiting Serena Shores!

It is summer time and it is getting hot! I realized I needed to add a little "cool" into my world by getting out my Serena Shores quilts! This collection of fabrics has coastal vibes of big blooming Agapanthus (also called Peter Pans) in cream and blues are accompanied by shells, wispy seaweed and sketchy linked rings. I showed this line at h+h last May of 2024 and it shipped to shops that fall. I don't think I showed it on the blog at the time so I thought it was a good time to bring back the watery coastal pics to share.

The line has precuts of 10" layer cake squares, 5" charm pack squares, mini charms and jelly roll 2 1/2" strips. 

I designed quilts and coordinating cross stitch for this line. The next blog post will show the cross stitch (and a little experiment in punch needle!). As for quilts, I showed 3 patterns in Serena Shores. 

My new quilt pattern with this group was Surf Wave. I love the simplicity in this but still so much motion with the waves. This quilt uses a layer cake for the larger 64" x 66" quilt or charm pack for the smaller 32" x 33" wall size quilt. This is an easy, fun quilt to make and could be a great gift for someone who likes to surf, swim, boat or water ski.

The background on the larger quilt is Thatched Coastal Blue 48626-209 and I love this new shade! Brighter than Navy but still dark enough with just a little warmth. The smaller quilt has Linked Rings in Cloud 48775-11. Pantograph used on large quilt is Oil Spill from Longarm League. These quilts make me feel like taking a breath and slowing down to enjoy a beachy day.

I also remade Tokyo Terrace (and made some needed corrections and updates in the pattern) in Serena Shores with the same Coastal Blue background for the large. Tokyo Terrace is a good pattern to use to show off large scale prints and in this instance I wanted to hightlight the flowers in two colorways as well as the sketchy shells. I liked the balance of the green for a more lively color accent and the wispy seaweed in cloud to show off the delicate leaves.

The drawings of all the shells are really a favorite of mine in this group and I enjoy them on the cream background as well. The print with coral and shells is a nice backing print for a quilt.

A pantograph I have used before on Tokyo Terrace is Modern Curves by Anita Shakleford. I've used it on the blue Coastal large quilt and Wishbone from Longarm League on the small one. 

Another thing to point out about Serena Shores is the addition of some new Thatched colors! Along with that Coastal Blue 209, there is also Breeze 210, Lime 214, Frost 211, Aqua 212, Surf 213, and Lagoon 199.

The last quilt I showed in Serena Shores was Backslash. 

This is a fun quilt to make and I enjoy the angles and how they lead your eye around the quilt. The pattern has several sizes including Lap, Twin and Queen. Both of these are lap sized at 64 1/2" square. The one on the wall is using Thatched Lagoon for the background. The pattern calls for 11 fabrics for the blocks so you can pull a nice range of coordinating prints in either 1/3 yard, 1/2 yard or 3/4 yard pieces (depending on size lap, twin or queen).

Susan Vaughn of the Felted Pear helped me out with some longarming on these (I try to do my own longarming but I was swamped at the time). The pantograph on the Lagoon version is Alga from Karlee Porter. The white one uses Mini City of Fountains pantograph from Julie Hirt of 627handworks.

Thanks for taking a look at Serena Shores and I hope you have some to play with. The beach and coast are calling!