You act like a diamond waiting to be set In a gold ring, as if I bet

This quilt is for a a husband and his new wife  who is the proud owner of a lovely diamond. :)

This is the Ampersand Quilt mashed up with a word search game.  The bride and groom are both Ivy League graduates in the humanities studies.  The words run horizontally, vertically, diagonally in all directions.

I love bright colors and was thrilled that the couple did as well.  I was told she loved yellow and disliked pink, just the opposite of my taste. The letter tile fabric has been out of print for about 10 years, but thanks to Fabric Place Basement in Alexandria, they happened to have some in stock...not any more I bought it all!

This quilt contains 900 squares as it's 30 x 30.You can see humanities themes in the squares:  houses, alphabbets, written words, books, crosswords, games and lots and lots of yellow.  I pieced it using a gridded fusible interfacing and simply quilted in the ditch.

Ponce De Leon constantly on The fountain of youth, not Robotron

 

This quilt was made for a baby boy named Leon.  He was born on March 15 of this year.  His mom had bright vibrant colors for the nursery. 

As any student of history or Shakespeare knows, March 15 is the ides of March, the day that Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Roman Senate. 

The design was inspired by the 2002 USPS stamp designed by Michael Osborne.  With 3 of the letters overlapping in the words love and leon, it was an easy switch.  The N is the logo that media network NBC used in the mid 70s.

"Beware the ides of March." (Shakespeare, 1998, 1.2:103).

Grab the phone, call my dad. Shared some love, felt so glad.

These two quilts were made for adult siblings whose father had died.  The mother had saved boxes of ties and had found specific ideas of how she wanted them to be constructed.

The black background quilt was for the daughter.  She loves Asian decoration and this design reminded her mother of a kimono. 37 ties (or pieces thereof) were used in this 3' by 5' quilt. The black background was a meandering freehand and the ties were quilted in the ditch.

As you can see in the pictures below, some ties were pieced to each other diagonally, others horizontally.  I appliqued many of the tie labels onto the quilt as well.  The father always loved West Highland Terriers hence the significance of the dog tie and dad tie in the right picture.

For the brother's quilt, the mother wanted a loose, woven pattern of ties on a hunter green background.  There are 24 ties used all together, 12 running horizontally and 12 running vertically. The quilt was 4 ft by 4 ft which required using almost all of the tie with just a little bit left over. This was a bit tricky as there were many more directional ties than allotted spots.  I ended up basting it very closely before quilting as the needle had to go through many more layers than a normal quilt and the silk ties slipped.

The applique and the quilting were completed at the same time. The layout was a bit tricky as there were many more directional ties than allotted spots. Because the interlining remained in the ties for them to keep their shape, it ultimately was a very heavy quilt.

Now, all night long Charlie rides through the station crying, "What will become of me? How can I afford to see my sister in Boston or my parents in Cincinnati?"

This Tarragon twinsize quilt was created last year for a future Northwestern Wildcat.  I had made pillows for his siblings and aunts and a quilt and pillow for his dad so now it was his turn!

 Many of the shirts were from his early childhood, not just high school.  I loved the fact that several of the shirts had transferred photographs like the beautiful Basset Hound you see below.  One of the blue mini-designs is from a neckerchief he wore at camp.

Amongst other activities Charlie played baseball.  I have no idea if this was a high school spiritwear shirt or from a Babe Ruth or JCC team but I DO know he was number 26.

The entire family are huge fans of the various Cincinnati professional teams.  The Reds shirt is from Spring Training in Florida.  I quilted heavily around the alligator so that the head would really pop.

I hope that this quilt has kept him warm during those frigid Chicago winters!