Water Quilting Design – Poseidon’s Eye #232

This design was inspired by Swirling Water – one of my absolute favorites. I started wondering what it would look like if the water was to swirl around a particular shape, in this case circles, and had to stitch it out just to see what it would look like.

Looking at the finished texture, I can already say this is going to be another favorite design!

I’m already starting to play with variations of Poseidon’s Eye because there are so many possibilities. What if you filled the circle with another design? What if you used a heart instead of a circle? I can’t wait to try stitching out all the different ideas!

Before I get too excited, let’s learn how to quilt this version first:

Difficulty Level – Intermediate. This design involves both echoing, a bit of travel stitching, and estimation as you swirl around to create the circle. If you find yourself struggling to stitch the circle smoothly and evenly, feel free to mark it the first couple of times so it’s easier.

Design Family – Branching. Branching designs are all inspired by the awesome filler design called McTavishing. The nice thing about these designs is they all have a gorgeous, graphic texture and generally work in all areas of a quilt.

Directional Texture – All Directions. The cool thing about this design is you get a neat combination of flowing lines around the circles, which stand out a bit from the crowd. I’d love to see what would happen if I trapuntoed the circles so they stand out even more!

Suggestions for Use – This design has a million possibilities: water in a sea landscape quilt, a moving border texture for a traditionally pieced quilt, and even a feasible background design for an applique quilt. I love this design so much, I might just take up a piece of plain black fabric and quilt Poseidon’s Eye all over it in blue thread just for fun. I think that would make one funky baby quilt!

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day