The bass is booming from down below And Norton is chillin' with Mario

This queensized quilt is made for an Oakton alumna/current Duke Blue Devil. She will be getting married to another Duke grad shortly after graduation so this will definitely fit in their decor.

She wanted a more random layout than most so the blocks were cut in multiple sizes.   Neither sashing nor borders were desired so it was simply edged with binding.

This shirt was completely covered with quotes written in puffy paint.  This was a spirit shirt made with her cross-country team.  The quotes ran onto the sleeves so the block ended up being a fat apital T as opposed to the typical quadrilateral.  The recipient was also a swimmer so we incorporated her team bathing suit.

The recipient is very devout so in addition to the  shirts from religious camps and teen organizations, the backing was pieced as a basic cross in Duke colors.

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!

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.

Carmen, Carmen, Carmen, Carmen, Carmen, chameleon, You come and go, you come and go.

This ABU Thyme totebag was made for an Air Force officer's baby gear.   The bag was designed to have bright accent colors to please Mom, yet not too feminine so Dad could lug it around and not be embarrassed.

These bags hold up really well as DOD battle uniform fabric is tough and this one is no exception.  The rank was removed from the collar and appliqued at the base of the handle straps. The various tags, awards, and buttons, remained as originally placed.  The pockets are still fully functional.

On the inside of the front of the bag, a huge fully lined quadruple pocket was added.  The military uniform pockets come from the bottom of the front of the ABU. On the narrow side, a small pocket was added to fit a cell phone.

The interior was lined with 4 different fabrics.  The front and back interiors were made from denim and and a bright home-decorator weight print.. 

The side panels were made from quilting fabrics.  The patch panel had a vertical strip of the same floral to add some color.  The Dad's unit patch was appliqued on the top. Mom works at a university so we added the school mascot (repurposed from a drink koozie) to the bottom.

The other side panel was all about the Mom.  She is a PhD candidate in the field of Biology so we designed the panel to look somewhat like a DNA strand.

 This couple will be awesome parents and their future baby will be in great hands!