Kayak Quilt

This was a special commission for a dad as a Father’s Day present/late anniversary gift. The couple met while kayaking, and she wanted to give him something special in honor of that first meeting.

Funny enough, there isn’t a whole lot of kayak in this kayak quilt. I found a picture of a canoe going down river, and I really liked the first person perspective. And they met in the spring, so I decided to use greens to make the hill foliage instead of autumn colors.

The water was a neat task, and I knew I wanted to make it unique and have a cohesive-yet-scrappy effect. Using two different shades of navy blue and adding in lighter accent blues, I was going for a watery movement effect, and I gave it an overall unity with a horizontal quilting pattern.

The hills are an element I am particularly proud of. I mused a while over how to approach them. In the end, much like the water, I just dug in and started cutting and let them lead me where they may. When it came to quilting them, I decided to do a different quilting style depending on which shade of green I was on. I even tried to create an evergreen effect for the darker greens.

The kayak element at first was nothing but a red triangle, and I added an inner line and black strap to help create the look found with most kayaks.

Overall, I am very proud of this one, and I know it’s going to a home where it will be loved. This client and I have worked together on commissions before, and she is fantastic at getting me to try new styles!

The completed work!
The unfinished top – known in the quilting world as a “flimsy.”

Auburn T-shirt Quilts

This was a Father’s Day commission.  I’ve never really been into sports unless I was actually on the team, so I had no qualms about making an Auburn quilt or two.  I’ll admit it was a good thing I didn’t care or have any loyalty to another team because I was up to my elbows in orange and blue for a long time.  Right after this commission I had an order for a Detroit Tigers quilt, so MORE orange and blue.

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Detroit Tigers quilt with alternating frames style

It was fun, though, because these quilts had a lot of “trash talk” shirts, and I chuckled at more than one of them.

I also had some baby clothes to try and work in – a couple of hats and a bib along with a pair of shorts and a couple of baby shirts.  I was able to do it with the help of fusible interfacing and invisible thread.

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One of the trash-talk shirts and above it is a baby hat.

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One of the quilt was my standard size and sashing look.  The first row, second from the bottom, was a handkerchief, and I used the back of one of the other shirts and made it into a block.

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The other one took a little more thought because it was what I refer to as “jigsaw”.  I spend a lot of time working on my graphic paper pad for the jigsaw style because everything has to fit together just right.

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The backing for the jigsaw quilt was fun because we decided to split the back between orange and blue.  I kept my usual method of fold-over binding, so the binding is also duel-colored!  I also did my usual loops and swirls quilting pattern.

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Related blogs and posts:

Auburn University Healing Quilts Initiative

Auburn University Quilts of Gees Bend

 

 

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