Deborah's "Rainbow" Turtles

Recently Deborah A. sent me a photo of her Quaker Turtles which she calls her Rainbow Turtles. Looking at the photo I think you can see why she calls them that. Don't the bright cheerful colors make you smile?Deborah wrote, Here's a slight variation on the Quaker Turtles. With the exception of the wool felt, they were done entirely from the "bits & pieces" box - those partial skeins & scraps of fabric left over from other projects - so they're all different colors.

They were a terrific project, and great fun to do. Thank you for designing them!

Thanks, Deborah, for the photo. Your turtles look so cute! You did an amazing job with them! I'm glad you enjoyed the project--they were so much fun for me to design.

I've heard recently from several of you who are inspired to make the turtles after having seen them on my blog. Here are a few tips:

Most of the backstitching around each turtle is done over 2 linen threads; however, you need to do an occasional backstitch over 1 or 3 linen threads instead of over the usual 2 linen threads. These "odd" backstitches are needed to get the right curvature for the turtle shells. The chart is marked so that you can see these "odd" backstitches. Remember that each square on the charts represents 1 linen thread.

When you start assembling the turtles, do one of the larger ones first, and not the teeny tiny one for the scissors weight. The smallest one will be easier to assemble once you've gotten the technique worked out on the larger ones.

You can see photos of other Quaker Turtles by clicking on the words Quaker Turtles on the left side bar of this blog page. I hope to see many more Quaker Turtles in the near future.