Saturday, June 06, 2015

Mr Hawaii


Those of you who have been reading here for a while will know that when my dad died in 2007, my stepmom gave me all of his Hawaiian shirts, with the request that I make a quilt from them for her, and one for her mother (who knew my dad and spent a lot of time with him). My dad was not a small man - 6'3" and broad - so there was a lot of material in the 20+ shirts I took home to England with me (top right hand photo shows the shirts).  I made a quilt for her, one for my step-gran, one for my brother (these three are the right hand one of the top two small ones at the left, and the two below that on the left side of this collage), one for myself (bottom right - it took until this past year to get this one quilted, and it's still not got binding on it, but that's another issue!), and one for a good friend of mine who knew my dad (top left small photo). I also  made two baby quilt tops - one of which went to Linus and one of which is sitting in my house (middle and bottom middle) - and a larger top, which also went to Linus (top middle).  And I still have fabric!  

Today would have been my dad's 73rd birthday, so I thought it was a good day to show this Hawaiian shirt legacy...

5 comments:

Plum Cox said...

What a wonderful legacy - and brilliant quilt designs to make the fabrics sing.
I'm sure that he'd have been very happy to see his shirts used like this. Great job, Kate!

sophie said...

It's incredibly how much you've made from those shirts--it is indeed quite a quilt legacy.

Marei said...

I think it's a wonderful way to remember your Dad and to have him live on in the memories of others. The father of a friend of ours died last year and I made a memorial quilt for the Mom, along with 5 dresser scarves for the 5 sons. This year the dad of another friend passed and I'm working on a quilt for her. I think memorial quilts bring a lot of comfort.

Benta AtSLIKstitches said...

SOOOOO much better than a charity shop, or landfill

Jean said...

Soo what you are saying is that he still lives on in the quilts and all these peoples memories. How wonderful of you to share with them all. I wish I had thought of a quilt at the time we lost my aunt. I think that a memory quilt would have been a sweet thing for my two cousins, who still feel the deep loss of her.