I was wondering about what to enter into the Quilt Festival at Amy’s Creative Side and I suddenly remembered my ‘old man and the sea’ wall hanging. Unfortunately, I only have dull Winter photos because I made it in December and gave it to my son, who lives by the sea in Portsmouth. I’ve decided to enter it anyway, though, because it’s my favourite small quilt I’ve made.
This quilt began when I visited the lovely Karen from Laughter in Quilts and she had made this stunning drunkards path mini quilt – do have a look! I was admiring her amazing fmq and suddenly I saw a fish!
Who knew you could arrange trimmed dps into a perfect fish shape! Probably everyone but it was a revelation to me. So I found a scrap of paper and scribbled away until I had a seemingly small ocean of fish. Then I did some calculations and discovered that would make a bigger-than-kingsize quilt unless I made 1″ dps, which I wasn’t really up for. So I scaled back and decided to make one fish to start with.
Then I added added some triangles to square up the ‘sea’ and added and an improv curve and a boat…and it was looking very blue, which was good because blue was the colour of the month in the Colour My World Challenge that M-R hosted over at Quilt Matters.
I also thought the fish was looking a bit obvious so I added some blue stitching to blend it in a bit…and some more blue stitching for the sky…and having become just a touch fixated with adding thread, I decided, for my fisherman to try some improv knitting (using six strands of anchor embroidery thread and 2mm needles) and I was really happy with how he turned out – a fisherman needs a jumper (+ hat, scarf and mitts!) and it was so much easier than appliquéing fabric!
I hope you like my little wall hanging and I hope you enjoy the Festival!
ohmygosh ohmygosh !! Just found this via pinterest and I ADORE it. (yes, I'm shouting). When I first saw this I thought the hat/scarf/etc were french knots. I do not knit. This is truly adorable. I am going to have to try a version of this (just for me and will give you credit for the inspiration). I do embroidery so will have to do the fk instead of knitting. Again, absolutely loovvvve this!
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I love this – so creative and effective :-)
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love this little quilt – as soon as I saw it I had to vote as I know just how much detail is in it :) good luck !
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Wow! this is just perfect little wall hanging. I love your fish idea. I might steal it for my baby quilt project. Thank you for the idea!
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the quilting definitely makes this piece amazing.
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I love your little old man out to sea! It is just adorable. Love all the hand quilting. It adds so much detail.
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I love it! Love that you hand-quilted it too :) The tiny knitting is amazing!
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I love this!!!!
Carol
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Me and my entire family adore this (ok I'm not sure about Lois but she smiles at most things!) It is gorgeous!
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love this !! so inspiring …u r such a creative girl! xo
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This is one of my favorite mini quilts made by you! I love all the details you added to this one :)
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Hee hee, love this wee guy, especially the newspaper boat :o)
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This is brilliant!!!
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Absolutely stunning!!!
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What I really love about this is your quilted sea – it's beautiful.
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I seriously love this quilt Janine, you are so creative with what you make.
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This is awesome! Clever vision. :-) The quilting really makes this quilt. Thanks so much for sharing your process on it, too.
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Wow so cute! I love the process you went through and the quilting and knit work!
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I do love all the different uses for the drunkards path pattern!
This is fun, fun, fun!
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I love it! The little details make this so very special — thanks for sharing it :)
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It's wonderful. The stitchery across the water gives it such a sense of movement, but my favorite part is the knitted fisherman's clothes!
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I'm so happy you entered this one Janine! I just love it!
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Hi Janine! I love your fisherman! It is so creative and well done! You had so great idea to use yarn for the cloths! Perhaps your son could take a photo by the sea with a real fisherman!
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I like how imaginative this is
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Lovely to see it sgain xxx
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I still think you should just give me this mini Janine :) He is so dang cute!
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oh wow, there are so many fabulous details in such a small quilt! the knitting was a brilliant idea, as was the fish itself, i love the texty boat and the curves of blue, but the quilting is really what makes it so amazing, it's perfect!
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That is an awesome wall hanging! The quilting is fabulous!
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I do love it Janine! Almost as much as Elsie Piddock!
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