Quilts Inspired By Travel

Creating a quilt inspired by colors, shapes, patterns and textures experienced on your travels near and far is a great way to make a tangible lasting memory of your experiences!

Start With Your Photos

Look through your travel pictures and select a few that stand out for either their vivid colors, intricate patterns, memorable shapes or the potential to recreate a scene in fabric.  After choosing the one that most resonates with you, begin planning how to execute the picture in fabric!

Literal or Figurative Design?

Some scenes lend themselves to being recreated fairly literally completely in fabric, like a landscape or seascape.  Keeping the outlines of land, trees, rocks, waves, etc. simplified, you can plan large areas to cut out from fabric, with smaller pieces to fill a specific area. 

Other scenes may be too complicated to reproduce in fabric.  You can use a more figurative approach, choosing a block pattern or quilt design to be made in the colors inspired by the scene, like a glowing sunset or swirling ocean view.  Decide on the main colors you will use and plan which pieces in the block will be cut from each color.

Bahamas

In 2014, a group of family members made a trip to the Bahamas!  Two years later, I made a quilt, Vivid Resplendent Seas, using the turquoise and teal shades of the ocean to portray the ebb and flow of the colors seen in the ocean waves.  The borders were the same swirly pastel blue of the sky.

I tried to capture the variations in ocean shades from the slightest hint of color near the shore to the dark blues much deeper in the ocean.

Organizing the strips in bars separated by the sky-blue vertical strips allowed the quilt to be pieced quickly, as there were no seams to match!

Autumn Kaleidoscope

This quilt was inspired by many trips to the Gatineau Hills near my hometown of Ottawa, Canada.  The fall colors in the hills are gorgeous!  I used a pack of autumn fabrics with some other autumn yardage to create a keepsake to present to my mom, who lives in Ottawa and enjoys the fall colors each year.

Barcelona, Spain

My cousin Rekha and I were fortunate to enjoy a trip to Spain in 2019!  I was particularly impressed with the vibrant colors of the stained glass in the Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona and wanted to make a quilt for my cousin as a memory of our day there.

I wanted to include the cool greens and blues dispersed from some of the windows along with the fiery reds, oranges and yellows from others glowing with the sun’s light.

Spain Quilt -

Sagrada Familia

I decided to do a pioneer braid pattern with fabric colors from every part of the spectrum to capture the beauty of the glowing light from the stained glass.

Each braid was quilted with radiating leaves, vines and plumes, along with geometric curves and lines.

I tried to capture the richness of the architecture with gold stitching of fancy filigree patterns.

Arizona Canyons

My love of exploring Arizona, the state I have lived in since 1987, was stitched into the quilt called Arizona Canyons.  The fabrics pieces I used were left over from another Arizona quilt called Arizona Red Rocks and Turquoise, made as a wedding gift for my niece and her husband.  The diamond shapes represent the red rocks of Sedona while the turquoise signifies Arizona’s state gemstone.  The large squares in the center of each row of diamonds are reminiscent of the delicate striations of Antelope Canyon, a true wonder of color and light!  The dense free-motion quilting was done in designs to represent the brave plants of the desert!

Arizona Canyons celebrates the beauty of Arizona’s red rocks, turquoise and canyons

Saguaro at Sunrise

This mini quilt, 12 inches square, celebrates the iconic saguaro cactus set with an Arizona dawn occurring behind it.  It is done in a raw-edge applique style with free-motion quilting to emphasize the swirling dawn and sky.

(The pattern for this mini-quilt is available as a free gift for signing up for newsletters on the Quilted Rhino website!)

Hawaii

My cousin Rekha and I spent a wonderful week in Hawaii in 2022, and I was struck by the beauty of the luscious royal purple orchids and verdant foliage growing so profusely everywhere we looked.  I wanted to capture these colors in a quilt.

I had been experimenting with foundation piecing and had tried out the New York Beauty pattern by EZ Piecing.  This block features a crown of triangles, reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty. Creating it in the colors of orchids and greenery, it seemed right to change the block name to Hawaii Beauty. Here is the quilt that resulted!

The top of Hawaii Beauty as seen from above the bed it is on.

What quilt design will travel inspire next?

As you travel near or far, capture the colors, shapes and patterns of all you observe with your eyes, your camera, your memory and your heart! You will have plenty of ideas for original quilt designs to bring to life in future projects to remind you of your adventures each time you look at your finished quilt!