I love football! I love football! I love football!That’s my reason That’s why I chat about the whole damn season

This is a quilt made for an avid footie fan/former player.  Playing for travel teams in childhood, Langley Saxons in high school,  culminating as a Christopher Newport University Captain, he amassed a tremendous amount of tournament patches as well as shirts.

I was thrilled to obtain the soccer field fabric designed by Robert Kaufmann as I knew it would be a great way to highlight some of the patches.  Many years ago, Robert Kaufmann came out with basketball court, hockey rink, American football gridiron, and soccer pitch designs.  Like most fabric manufacturers,  RK had a limited print run on designs.  Once ithey're gone. they're gone, :( However, one of my favorite fabric stores that tends to carry older fabric was my saving grace yet again and they had this design in stock.

    

The left side of the field has light blue and grey patches representing the CNU Captains and the right side are the green and gold of Langley High School.  The remaining patches were sewn on the various t shirt blocks.

The recipient picked up the quilt with his daughter and son.  He asked them where it should be put in the house obviously thinking the family room but the children simultanrously laid claim to the quilt shouting "my room!"

Um, how much sound from the brass to the air Will it take, to put your cheers in the air? (Pardon me there)

The recipient was not only a trumpeter for the marching bands both at Thomas Jeffersosn High School of Science and Technology and at the University of Virginia, he majored in music. TJHSST, referred interchangeably as either TJ or Jefferson, is a public magnet school that is currently ranked 14th in the nation.  In his spare time during his US Presidential terms, Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia.

When the recipient graduated from UVA back in 2016, he had cut up his shirts in different sized squares and  hemmed them with gigantic stitches. He then glued them on a fleece blanket that had the Cavalier Marching Band logo machine-embroidered in the lower-right corner.  

He was never pleased with the results so his mom contacted me to see if we could "fix it" for his birthday. She wanted to incorporate the blanket in its entirety.  Neither mom or son had any idea what kind of glue had been used back then.  I was really nervous that him being a TJ grad AND a guy that he had used Gorilla Glue or something even stronger. I did a test and discovered that it was a water-soluble adhesive.  I soaked the blanket in a bathtub and found all the squares had become free and were floating independently.  I then washed all the squares and the now plain blanket to get rid of any remaining stickiness.

He wanted a masculine sashing so he opted for a blue and white plaid with rust accents.  Upon initial layout of the squares against the plaid, I could tell the design really needed a solid to both separate the busy plaid from some of the busier designs and to unify the square sizes.  This Kona grey set off squares nicely.

The original blanket had curved corners so I machine-appliqued the entire blanket on top of the flannel.  Usually you would add sashing by sewing the strips to the outer edge of the fleece.  This is a great quilt for the winter as it has 4 layers, top, batting, fleece, and flannel.

 Happy Birthday!

To all the party people who are happy and free, Tsouras and Foley rewriting history

This was a very special commission to create.  An elderly gentleman wanted a quilt made from his AND his wife's Army uniforms and patches.  His wife had started to cut pieces from their uniforms but unfortunately had died before this was completed. All the fabrics had been cut into squares or rectangles, but he wanted circles in the design.

The recipient had met his future wife when they were both serving as 2LTs,  Foley was the wife's maiden name and then they both were Tsouras after marriage. During this era, she was in the Women's Army Corps otherwise known as WACs.

There were so many patches that needed to be incorporated.  Rank patches are easy to position directionally.  Some of the unit and branch patches had to be identified as they were embroidered in subdued black for fatigues and were not easily discernable.  I headed off to the museum at the nearest Army base and talked to a curator who provided information about the unknown patches.  I did not want to place one sideways or upside down.

I only fastened the shoulder boards at their bases and then buttoned them to the quilt.  The recipient had not provided buttons but I was able to find replacements at the PX.  He had 12 shoulder boards but only 8 of the button flaps.  Being short 4 flaps, I sourced 2 Class A shirts from my son's old BSA troop's uniform stash. The BSA shirts were a slightly paler, more oatmeal shade than the Army's khaki shirts but it wasn't noticeable.

The recipient had mentioned liking circular designs but had given me rectangular small cuts of fabric.  I designed a double Dresden Plate out of a flight scarf for the inner circle, fatigue pants for the first plate and shirts for the outer plate.  I also arranged the branch patches in 4 grids that looked somewhat circular.

I wanted a simple but interesting border.  Originally, I was going to use the same licensed US Army fabric that I was using as the backing, but it was too busy as the border.  I was lucky to find a burlap home decorating trim that was not only in Army green but also printed in a Greek Key design.  The recipient had mentioned that he was first-generation Greek-American when we met so I knew this would be appropriate.

Brothers out there with sisters, peep it Years and years you try to keep her a secret

In celebration of a successful formal recruitment at the wearers' school, I am finally posting pictures of a joint order.  Apparently at this university, the Chi Omegas do a lot of functions with the Sigma Chis.  So much so that the ΣX boys are little brothers and the ΧΩ girls are the big sisters.

This is much different than in my day.  While my sorority definitely tended to pair with certain fraternities at my university, it was not a formal joining.  We were free to affiliate as individual members of fraternities as Little Sisters. Favorite guys of our sorority were called Keymen rather than Little Brothers. 

In any case, the Chi Omega is a Sigma Chi Big to a specific Sigma Chi and he is correspondingly the Chi Omega Little to her.  ΧΩ colors are red and yellow and ΣX colors are cobalt blue and yellow.  I assumed they would want yellow as one of the colors as it ties in with both of their groups but they decided to eliminate yellow entirely and go with each of their other colors ie the red and cobalt.  They also wanted the big/little relationship embroidered on the sleeve.  My machine does not have that capability so the embroidery was done by hand using a running stitch.

I love it when you hit those switches I curve ball what my pitch is So here we-here we come Like dum-ditty-dum I keep all three ladies in stitches

This was an interesting project that includes 3 generations of first-born women.   The grandmother (generation 1) apparently embroidered many blocks that compose a childhood prayer and put them together as a quilt top.  She made this for her hope chest, well before she was a wife and mother. The embroidery is hand stitched as was the piecing.  Originally the quilt was tied, not quilted.

The mom (generation 2) also had  a different baby quilt..  Eventually it used as the batting for the embroidered quilt.  

In the 1980s, generation 3 daughter was born.  She was given the embroidered quilt at her birth and also had a cotton thermal blanket that she loved. This daughter is now a a PhD candidate at UVa focusing on American Art History.

By fall of 2020, the embroidered quilt was in rough shape.  Both the backing and the  quilt that had been used as the batting were shredded and the batting had shifted.  The quilt had only been tied, not quilted so there were lots of lumps and bumps from the batting.  Luckily the embroidery had held up very well.

I took apart the 3 layers, tried to comb/ smooth out the smaller lumps and removed the big bumps that I couldn't get to flatten.  I put in a very thin poly batting between the top  and the original batting and then added a new back.  I machine-quilted it and added a hanging sleeve.  The mom (generation 2) embroidered a different prayer on a label which I hand-appliqued to the back.

The daughter  (generation 3) received the refurbished quilt in Christmas 2020 and promptly asked if her cotton thermal blanket was also in the middle. It had not been included because mom hadn't been able to find it.  Of course daughter runs up to her old room and digs it out of some hidden corner within a couple of minutes.

I was then contacted to rip out some of my quilting so I could then add the blanket and requilt it. I was worried because the original fabrics of the embroidered top were fragile and I was afraid that the fabrics would tear no matter how careful I was when taking out the stitching. However the customer is always right and I personally love the idea of all these layers representing different generations, so I was willing to take the risk.  The mom (generation 2) made an additional label (to go with the prayer label) that lists the names of the 3 women and their respective birth years.

I love this story as I am also the third generation of first born women and my daughter is the 4th generation.  In my family, all 4 of us have the same first name and my daughter thinks she wants to continue the tradition if she ever has a first-born who happens to be a girl.  Crossing my fingers!!!

Make you bounce, rock, roll and skate Don't underrate how I operate

This was one of the most challenging projects I have ever designed.  The recipient was a competitive skater in her day. She provided 4 costumes, all of which were sequined, sparkly and very slippery. Although the fabrics weren't stretchy, I fused interfacing to the backs and fray-checked every cut edge to make them behave.

I knew that the patriotic vest and white lacy bodysuit would work well together.  I overlaid the vest on top of the blouse.  A strip of the rainbow outfit was used as a cummerbund. I wanted to include all the fabrics on each side of the pillow, so I created a gold medal out of the neon yellow costume.

The other side was a bit of a challenge.  I created pillows for this person in the past using crazy quilt designs which would have worked nicely.  However I discovered a quilt block called Marcie's Maze and given that the recipient was named Marcy, albeit spelled slightly differently, I knew this would make a great side.

Not only did I reposition sequins for this side, I also appliqued the name tags that had been sewn into the costumes.  I created the piping from the striped fabric as well. I originally wanted the yellow and the white to be reversed but it looked too much like sunny-side up eggs.

On brave old Army team, on to the fray. Fight onto victory, for that's the fearless Army way

This is a project from nearly 2 decades ago.  We were stationed at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY.  The colonel was retiring so the officers' wives got together and made his spouse a memory quilt of different cross-stitch West Point scenes.This quilt was entirely hand-pieced and hand-quilted.

The majority of the designs were from a cross-stitch sampler sold by the Association of Graduates.  Trophy Point, the 3 chapels, a full-dress cadet, the Army mule, the parade hat (otherwise known as a tar bucket), Washington Hall and the cannon were all designed by the sampler artist. We also supplemented the quilt squares with the USMA crest and designs specific to the family.  The crest was from a book entitled Needlepoint Insignia of the Armed Forces, t and the DMI and Rho Chi graphs I believe were found on the internet.

The department that this colonel ran for 6 years was the Department of Military Instruction.  DMI faculty taught tactics, leadership, ran the summer training and much more. Their offices and classrooms were in Washington Hall.. If you haven't guessed, the West Point colors are black grey, and gold.  These colors represent the 3 components of gunpowder: charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur. We used an attic windows block to keep each design separate and distinct.  The sashing for the attic windows came from the black shirts cadets wear to class and the grey pants.  The braided border incorporated the same fabrics plus the white full-dress pants worn for parades and balls.  I think the DMI lettering, the NY quilt block, and the Rho Chi designs came from internet searches.  The remaining images were designed by yours truly.

The colonel's family was a lovely group.  The oldest child babysat for my kids. She was quite an athlete (still is) so she was depicted in a soccer uniform. Her brothers were also athletes so they are shown wearing football and basketball uniforms.  The oldest boy ended up at USAFA and is now a fighter pilot flying F-16s. Ironically, the baby of the family is the tallest of all and played on the University of Virginia National Championship Mens Lacrosse team. Dad is in his dress blues and Mom is in a Valkyrie dress complete with a Viking helmet as DMI was well known for the annual Viking fest tailgate.  Black Lab Bud lived to a ripe old age but he is now gone.

Like many of the officers' wives on base, both Mrs. DMI and I were West Point tour guides.  We provided historical information and interesting trivia to many USMA visitors. I was going to dress her in the tour guide uniform but thought the Viking outfit was more fitting.

They lived in a beautiful set of Old English South quarters that overlooked the Hudson River.  This was a complicated image to design and complete but I managed.  Here is a much more realistic image from the USMA Housing Office.

I drink Brass Monkey and I rock well, I got a campus on Brookley, that's where I dwell

This is a needlework depiction of the former BAFB/now JBAB Education and Training Center on Brookley Avenue.  All the design but the flag was cross-stitched or embroidered.  The appliqued flag was from a flag motif fabric that happened to be the perfect size ratio.  It was made for a Cornell alumna who worked at one of the schools at the Ed Center from 2000-2002.

Just back from Japan and ooh I'm laggin' Goin' rao rao with the dungeon dragon

This is different than my usual projects.  The recipient had a gorgeous sashiko (Japanese embroidery on indigo) jacket that she bought in Okinawa.  I wish I had thought to take a picture of the jacket as it was quite lovely.

The recipient is redecorating a guest room with a blue and white theme so she thought the sashiko jacket could be repurposed into pillows. We added a blue and blue batik for the contrast fabric which is quite appropriate given that she is a Kappa Kappa Gamma alumana.

The first pillow was from the front of the jacket.  I sewed the opening down so there wouldn't be a gap while leaving the frogs and coordinate in place.

This was a basic 4-patch using 8 inch squares. I really loved how the batik coordinates with the sashiko embroidery.

To provide some visual interest for the bed, I made a bolster pillow with the two main fabrics.  I also added some cream lace to coordinate with the ecru fabric from the first pillow.

I was suspended in animation just the other day Well I was in the night kitchen on the Milky Way

 

These 3 crazy quilt pillows were made from hostess and utilitarian aprons as well as kitchen and decorative towels. They were given to 3 female relatives of a woman who loved to entertain in the day.

 

 The 3 scarecrows were pockets on one particular apron.  The fruit arrangement on the middle pillow was a pocket as was the yellow ruffled piece.

The dusty pink sections and the blue swirled pieces were from beautiful hand-embroidered aprons.  Entertaining is so different in this era as compared to past decades.

How can you laugh? Because you know I'm down!

I recently participated in an art quilt challenge.  Each participant had to pick a different song from the Beatles discography and interpret it in a 24" by 24" wall quilt.   The results of this challenge were compiled in a book called Inspired By the Beatles.

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All the quilts are presented in alphabetical order and we each had a full page for the picture and accompanying narrative.

 
The following questions were part of the submission package:

Why did you choose this song? 

I’m Down was released by the Beatles in 1964.  Michael Jackson owned the rights to the Beatles vault in the 1980s and refused to let the Beastie Boys sample I’m Down.  This song went out as a demo to various radio stations of that era but was not allowed to be a track on the Beastie album.  I never was a MJ fan, but this made me even less of one.

What inspired this quilt? 
Obviously  I’m Down needed directional arrows.  The seven arrows represent the 4 Beatles and 3 Beastie Boys.  The Beatles arrows either have beetle insects, beetle cars, or London double decker buses as motifs.  The Beastie Boys arrows represent each of the members of the group: crowns for King AdRock Adam Horowitz,  guitar-playing buddhas for converted Buddhist MCA Adam Yauch, and diamonds for Mike D Michael Diamond.  The downward pointing arrows are arranged in the shape of a capital letter I.

The sequin thumbs-down hand with the NO sign represents that bad decision of Michael Jackson’s not allowing the sample.  The HA! represents the “How can you laugh because you know I’m down?” that is on both versions of the song. The HaHa fabric is from the curtains in my oldest child's bedroom.  The fact that I still had them 20 years later just shows what a packrat I can be.

Materials used in your quilt: Cottons, Flannels, Sequins, Beads

Do you consider yourself a Beatles fan?  I am a moderate Beatles fan.  I like their original albums, really did not like their later work.

Do you have any Beatles memories or stories to tell?  I wasn’t even born after the British Invasion had already occurred but at the age of 8 when I was given a portable record player for Christmas, my parents included “Introducing the Beatles” album which I alternated with my Partridge Family album.

What effect does music have on your creative process? I do have all the Beastie Boys albums on permanent rotation in my car.  I tend to design quilts in my head during my commute.

Tell me if you have a musical background, or experience. 6 painful years of violin and orchestra, 3 of bells for marching band.

Why do you quilt?  I find it relaxing.  In my younger days as a SAHM and officer’s wife, I enjoyed taking on projects with permanent results. Meals get eaten, laundry and houses get dirty again, the lawn keeps growing.  Doing something that did not come undone made me very happy.  Although the kids are grown, I still enjoy seeing completed endeavors.

Why are you participating in this challenge? I like challenges and being forced to think outside the box and/or my comfort zone.

Do you have a typical quilting style?  Is this particular quilt typical? I tend to design picture quilts and pick my fabrics accordingly.  I am not a huge fan of making traditional quilts  (although I admire other people’s work!) and tend to go with my own designs.  In terms of this quilt being typical, I am rebelling a bit as usual by making this quilt about both groups singing the song.

Did you listen to Beatles music when you made this quilt? I initially listened to all the versions of I’m Down that I could find on youtube.    I have repeatedly listened to the Beastie Boys and Beatles versions as I was coming up with ideas.

Did anything special happen when you were making this quilt?  I just enjoyed breaking the rules a bit by including the controversy as images.

 

 

I put the pen to the paper and I went off. I'm dropping knowledge and wisdom like a mad head dog

This was a memorial quilt for a beloved pet.  Portia was a flat-coated retriever who lived just over a decade. 46 of these very large triangles were neckerchiefs that she would get at the groomers. When I saw them all, I immediately thought that she had a better wardrobe than me!

The two triangles below are not part of the 46.  Portia's owner is a proud alumna member of Pi Beta Phi (Illinois Theta) and is very active in the Pi Phi Alumnae Association in her area. I needed to make 48 triangles to obtain a grid so I figured what better than some Pi Phi symbol fabric?

Portia was a canine volunteer for  Fairfax Pets On Wheels, a wonderful organization connects pets with people living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.  The blue neckerchief was her uniform when visiting shut-ins.
 

 

The block below came from a plain red neckerchief.  Portia's owner also owns a lighthouse and Portia had visited the lighthouse before her demise.   I hand-embroidered an image of this lighthouse to add a little excitement to this triangle.

Bertschire's A Flat Out Joyride 

"Portia" 

February 18, 2003 - May 11, 2013

I've got money like Charles Dickens. I've got the girlies in the coupe, like the Colonel's got the chickens

Those *&^$%! Chickens!  This quilt was made as a result of a quilt bee swap. In a swap, the participants make as many blocks as participants. They keep one for themselves and trade and receive one to/from everybody else. Our quilt bee is called the Worker Bees because we are really diligent about doing projects. In any case, someone proposed chicken blocks. By the time I was done, I had 14 chicken blocks, 3 of which were facing the wrong way. I had no idea what to do with these creatures and just let the ideas germinate in my head. I elongated a Margaret Rolfe rooster pattern for the corner blocks, found chicken wire and 2 egg motif fabrics and then came my true inspiration.

I was at a wedding in a tiny town in the Pacific Northwest and we had time to kill before the ceremony.  I found a needlework shop and a quilt shop practically across the street from each other.  When I saw the crewel work pattern that said Good Morning Let the Stress Begin WITH a rooster, I knew that had to go into this quilt.  I am not a country girl so this would be my one and only chicken quilt. I am also not a morning person and back in those days it was always stressful getting the kids to school, spouse to work, me to work, etc.

The foxes came from a very old needlepoint book by Dorothy Kaestner.  Each fox face is mostly needlepoint but the ears and top and sides of the head are bargello stitches.  If you look carefully, you will see each set of eyes in a different position.  The bird blocks were all quilted with a hexagonal design that I thought resembled chicken wire. It was all hand-quilted, hand-embroidered, and mostly hand-pieced.  So despite me not knowing what to do with these *&^$%! chickens, it all came together fairly easily. 

Went to the prom, wore the fly blue rental Got six girlies in my Lincoln Continental

This full-size Fennel quilt was made for a recent West Springfield High School graduate who definitely marches to the beat of his own drummer.  At his high school prom he ditched the black tie,pants, and patent leathers for  a gingham bow tie, Sperrys and Chubbies. The jacket and dress shirt stayed on.

Pictures at the date's house.....

                                                                                       ......picture at National Harbor

This was a boy who went to MIT in the summer to study ultra-cold atoms,

ran cross-country and track,  refereed travel and house soccer (note the v-neck and the collar of the uniform remained intact).

Served as a class officer and in the student government, was in FBLA and DECA (yet another hoodie shirt)

and still managed to work a part-time job (tan rectangle was made from his Panera visor).  There will have to be another quilt for just his Scout paraphernalia as there was no more room in this quilt.

The quilt ended up quite large which is perfect for a twin bed in college that's been lofted with bed risers or cement blocks.  I had made the recipient's sibling the same size quilt years before and she told me the quilt was big enough to hide all the stuff stored under the bed.  It measures approximately 90" by 106".  This is taller than the room where the quilt was photographed so it is a bit wrinkled at the bottom.

This client asked to add a sweatshirt hood to the quilt.  So not only is there a hanging sleeve, the leftover hood from the DECA shirt did get sewn into the binding.

The client thought this would make the quilt extra cozy for the recipient's dorm room.