The Big Book of Boat Canvas: A Complete Guide to Fabric Work on Boats

The Big Book of Boat Canvas is a thorough revision and updating of Karen Lipe’s two popular earlier books, Boat Canvas Cover to Cover and More Boat Canvas, combined with a whole new section on below-decks sewing projects. In this latest volume Lipe ranges well beyond the boundaries of traditional canvas work to create a comprehensive guide to fabric work on board. You’ll find dozens of traditional canvas projects--sail covers, awnings, duffel bags, dodgers, and Biminis, wind chutes, winter covers--all with clear, step-by-step instructions, generously illustrated. You’ll also find dozens of not-so-traditional fabric projects to add comfort and a touch of elegance to your below-decks spaces: custom interior cushions, fitted sheets and daycovers, privacy curtains, lee cloths, even a tablecloth to fit your varnished table. Lipe offers a veritable minicourse in interior yacht decoration, dozens of useful sewing tips, a careful detailing of materials nad tools needed for each project, and an extensive discussion of modern fabrics appropriate for exterior and interior use. In short, this handy book covers everything you need to know to sew comfort, utility, and style into your boat.

＂A treasure of functional and fanciful projects you can sew yourself.＂--Multihulls

＂You’ll find this book of the utmost practical help.＂--The Ensign

It passed what is for me the acid test of a how-to book: The Big Book of Boat Canvas made me want to get at some long-neglected projects and even to try some that I never thought I could manage.＂--SAIL

Karen Lipe was born in Michigan and began racing Sailfish at age five. At Michigan State University she raced dinghies and met Bob Lipe as they stood in line hoping for berths on a ’round-the-world voyage. For eleven of their fifteen years of marriage, they lived aboard a 40-foot Atkin ketch in which they cruised the Eastern seaboard, Great Lakes, Caribbean, and Bahamas. Karen began writing articles for marine publications and making ＂canvas＂ items for other cruising boats from the deck of her yacht, and when the demand for her work got bigger than the boat, she started a commercial loft in Fort Lauderdale, which she operated seasonally for two years. She sold that loft to make a transatlantic voyage, and later started the Coverloft in Annapolis. There she worked with individuals, manufacturers, and marketing companies for nine years, designing and building canvas and yacht interiors for all types of floating craft. Her daughter Annie was born in 1981, and in 1982 she sold her loft and worked as a consultant and yacht broker for five years. She is presently back in the ＂canvas business＂ with partner Bob McWilliams, designing and manufacturing at McWilliams and Lipe, Ltd. She also consults with people interested in starting their own canvas businesses, helping with financial projections, procurement of materials and machinery, and plant layout.