Help! Need ideas! Jiu Jitsu, MMA, even karate....
 

I am wanting to make my son a quilt. He is big into MMA, mixed martial arts, which is a mainly jiu jitsu. You may know this style of fighting as UFC. (He has his first championship match in Aug!!). He's started to get into oriental style things since starting this a few years ago.

I absolutely can't find any fabric of this. I can find karate, which is not what this is, he is very adamant about this, LOL! I was thinking maybe I could do some applique of Japanese letters? An oriental style? I'd really love to find some MMA fabric, though. Or UFC, either of those.

Does anyone have any patterns to suggest?

If you "Google" images for MMA you will find logos, silhouettes, and photos relating to the sport. I think it's OK to post this one example:[ATTACH=CONFIG]346158[/ATTACH]. Enlarged, I think it would make a great center medallion and it's not too detailed.

you will need to be creative and perhaps use silhouettes of the sport appliqued on asian inspired fabrics. you get to really design your own quilt here. and while your son is adamant that mma is not karate, this style of fighting uses several martial art forms not just jiu jitsu. i have taken a coupla of jiu jitsu classes and it is more grappling than fighting.

mma contains boxing, karate, kickboxing, kung fu and a host of other martial arts techniques hence the name mixed martial arts. so technically you could use some karate fabric or images and not be wrong. you can include appliques of boxing gloves, the gi (martial art uniform), martial art stances, etc. there is a host of things you can do to design this quilt for your son. perhaps he can provide some input on what he would like to see so it will be something he will enjoy immensely.

good luck and i look forward to seeing your pics.

p.s. here is a martial arts quilt made with postage stamp squares
http://paulaobrien.wordpress.com/category/travel/tokyo/
http://paulaobrien.files.wordpress.c...tq19.jpg?w=300

Greenheron, that is perfect! His gloves are perfect even! I can actually cut that out with my Cricut for a pattern! I didn't think to look for clip art type images, duh! THank you so much!!

Havplenty, that quilt is amazing!!!! I can't believe it's a postage stamp quilt! MMA is a mixture, you are right. I used to say, "what time is karate" or something, and he'd be like, "Mom, it's not karate!" LOL! I did wrongly call all of it "karate" and I guess he wanted to educate me, LOL! He has started to "specialize" in jiu jiutsu although he takes several different things, like you said. He's also wanting to make his own gi's!! We'll sure try it, LOL! I may can use some pieces of his old gi's in too? THank you so much for your help, you've gave me a lot of ideas!!!

My boys usually have no interest in my quilts at all, but they love the ideas for "their" quilts. I am making my other son a Bob Marley quilt, and he's seeing how cool it's turned out and he's thinking maybe Mom's quilts aren't so old fashioned after all!

one other idea i had was to print some pics to fabric and use as blocks. there are certain martial arts stances that are classic such as the high kick. you could also use a pic of your son in silhouette as a center for the quilt. there are so many possibilities. get your pad out to start jotting down all of your ideas. i am sure you will come up with many.:)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]346468[/ATTACH]

From the London mma site: dreammma.com
Good luck with the quilt.

You guys have really got me fired up! LOL! I was up half the night sketching, googling, etc. You have been such a big help to me, I feel like I should give you a big hug!

HUGS to you all!

http://ayumills.blogspot.fi/2011/03/...n-pattern.html

http://kittens-mitten.com/ Samurai costume, Japanese alphabet signs

These ideas make me want to make a mma quilt, too.

hevemi: those two sites are a treasure. Pink Penguin's toaster is a hoot but I love the Japanese calligraphy patterns.

Any chance of getting you to share a pic of the Bob Marley quilt? I would love to see it.