I come from the land down under, where beer does flow and men chunder

This is one of my earliest quilts, made about a quarter-century ago. The SAE MIT graduate was headed from the United States for a 1 year master's program at the University of New South Wales in Australia. He liked Sydney so much that he is still there!

So in 1995,  I was at the fantastic New England Book Fair with my mother.  I had made 1 quilt at that point and swore never again as I found it dull to make the same block multiple times especially when the popular colors at the time were wedgwood blue and dusty mauve.  I was looking at needlepoint books in the remainder section and saw this book by Margaret Rolfe.  I suggested as a joke to my mother (who did not sew at all) that I get the book and we make the quilt to commemorate the recipient's year in Australia. We headed to the original Fabric Place Basement where I actually bought fabrics in fraction increments.    That was the last time I would buy less than a yard of a fabric even if a patten called for a small amount.  She agreed that she would learn to piece but somehow the project became all mine.

I added 3 images to balance out the 20 creatures Rolfe had designed.  My parents had visited Sydney during that year as they thought they would never have a reason to go again being that the recipient was only there for the UNSW program.  They picked up a university patch from the college bookstore which I then appliqued on an oblong 8-pointed star.  I added a miniature Australian flag and an appliqued outline of AU and Tasmania in a batik fabric.  The aboriginal dot fabrics weren't sold in the US during this era.

 

This isn't the greatest picture but it does show that the quilt has held up well.  The quilt was entirely hand-pieced and hand-quilted.   I thank Margaret Rolfe for opening my eyes to non-traditional quilt blocks and to her use of bright colors. 

Meat Pie, Sausage Roll Come On Kearny, Give us a goal OOH, We Got a Corner!

The recipient for this full-sized fennel quilt played a LOT of soccer all over the world as well as rowing crew in the US.

I was asked specifically to applique the patch on this Stuttgart shirt as it indicated a championship for this team.

This block was a combination of sections from her Stuttgart Eagles UnderArmor shirt along with a front pocket design of the tie-dyed grey shirt.

Singlets or middies are too narrow for a full block due to the armhole cutouts.  Hence I added red knit fabric so it could square off to the 14.5" block.

As always, I felt I really knew the recipient by the time I finished the quilt.

But the words ain't mine, I just pass 'em along For Betsy C and her friends, I sing this song

This is a lapsize lavender quilt made for a person relocating away from Virginia to freezing cold New England. 

I was inspired by Rob Appell's State Map Applique Quilt https://mansewing.com/2018/01/state-map-applique-quilt/ but instead of using a jelly roll of coordinated prints, I used novelty fabrics with themes that would mean something to the recipient.  I blew up the outline of our Commonwealth (omitting the peninsula that hangs off MD on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay).  I then calculated the desired width of the strips by dividing the total number of strips into the widest length.  I sewed the strips together and traced the outline on the back to make a gigantic Virginia shape which was then appliqued on the background fabric.

 

 

So left to right:

 

The Virginia house was red brick. 

The recipient lived in an historic city full of lovely old buildings. 

Her favorite getaway was to beaches of Florida prolific with seashells. 

The office theme was based on all the paperwork she had to complete constantly, 

The next strip was a friends theme as she was a very good one to all. 

The grape theme indicated all the vineyards in Northern VA and the dogwood strip of course reflected the state flower. 

The black strip has her favorite drink that she would always have with dinner (although she liked margaritas on the rocks and not frozen as indicated on the fabric). 

The middle strip had dog bones and pawprints to represent her beloved fox terrier. 

The fabrics were then repeated in reverse order.

 

 

 

 

Because the recipient was moving up north where winters are long,  I used a variety of polar fleeces to make the backing to keep her extra-warm  One can see on the solid fleece that the quilting really pop, whereas it just blends into the fleece prints