I am not really one to name quilts but as I worked on this commission that’s inspired by the ocean, it came to me.  Have you read “The World According to Garp” by John Irving?  I read it a long time ago (in 6th grade, maybe?) and there is a part when Garp is a kid and his parents tell him to watch out for the under tow while swimming in the ocean, but being a kid, he thinks they are talking about a huge toad that lives under the water that will get you if you venture too far.  Beware of the undertoad.This quilt doesn’t have anything to do with toads, but it’s filled with flowing water and sky.  This is the third quilt for my childhood friends, commissioned by their dad.  Taylor and Casey received their quilts at Christmas and Erik received his this week, on his 24th birthday.  Erik went to Thailand just weeks before I did last year and took some beautiful pictures of the ocean, which is what I kept in mind whilst I sewed.It’s completely inspired my Sew Katie Did‘s Half Square Triangle love quilt and made of 11 different solids, picked because of their names that allude to water (and a couple others to round out the color spectrum: Kona cotton in Asparagus, Cyan, Jade Green, Sky, Lagoon, Lake, Pacific, Marine, Cross Weaves in Aqua and Storm, all ordered from Marmalade Fabrics).  I didn’t do the math before putting the quilt together and I ended up without enough fabric so I scampered around town trying to find some more blue solids and got this great Robert Kaufman organic solid in teal.  At $12/yard, I admit it was more than I wanted to spend but it was the perfect color and I’m happy I went with it.  I used a few extra blocks I had to bring the movement into the border.

It’s backed with a Lotta Jansdotter print that reminded me of kelp, Heath in turquoise, a dark habitat print that reminded me of sea anemones, and all the scraps from the front.  It’s quilted in a cloud pattern with pale blue thread on Ursula the Long Arm, bound in a Kaffe Fassett shot cotton stripe that worked perfectly, and labelled.

Did I mention I made this quilt start to finish in 10 days?  Yeah, part of it was procrastination and part of it was because of the studio move and not having the space to spread out and work on it.  But I finished it!  It’s amazing what I can do on a deadline :)

I hope Erik loves his quilt.  This has become one of my favorites and I will definitely make another HST quilt in solids one of these days.