Yesterday, I finally sat down and did a couple sewing projects. The first, I made two bolster pillows to match the curtains I made last year. The fabric is great–a black and white toile designed by artist Sue Coccia in her totem-style Animal Spirits line of cotton prints. This fabric has all sorts of sea creatures – crabs, sea otters, seals, stingrays, turtles, octopi, dolphins, sharks. Fun! I used a bright indigo blue fabric for the ends to tie into the pretty blue afghan our talented friend Monica made for us this summer. Have I mentioned I love deep blues? The Coccia fabric also comes in a lovely colorful version, but I like black-and-white or blue-and-white prints.

Once into the spirit of sewing, I moved on to another project. Our boat’s fender covers were looking pretty ragged–and the fenders themselves are no spring chickens–so I picked up a king size knitted blanket at Target and made nine fender covers ranging from huge down to itty bitty. I still have four more to cover so I may be going back to Target for a matching twin size blanket. These new covers are replacing ones I made in 2009 from fleece blankets but this time I decided the knit blanket pattern was soft enough to use as a cover and its style matched the boat. In Hervey Garrett Smith’s book The Marlinspike Sailor there is even something called a “fender hitch” for covering round things. That pattern of hitch looks a lot like this knit pattern.

The blanket and marlin started out as a pile on the seat next to me. Soon I was sewing and at the rate of one fender every half hour, my blanket was quickly consumed.

The largest extra-huge fenders seem to often find themselves as guard duty to keep the inflatable Tinker Traveler suspended above the galley butteryfly hatch.

We have small fenders that aren’t used for the hull so much as for everything else on deck that we’re trying to protect, it seems. For example…the canoe vs the deck works out best with a fender between the two of them. If we ever were willing to install chocks for dinghy and canoe, the fenders would be “off duty.”

Other fenders await their duties:

Normal guard duty for the large fenders in a slip

Next sewing projects? More fender covers and the biggie–making royal blue cushions for our charthouse seats. David really doesn’t like sitting on the wood bench seats without a cushion. I’ve had the fabric for several months…OK, about a year! and I now just need to take the time to make the cushions.