Here's one for the bleachers and the upper tier UVA All-Cavalier

This is the third quilt I have made for members of this familiy.  First was mom anf then the oldest child and now Kiddo #2.  Like most high schoolers in Fairfax County, the recipient was extremely involved with extra-curriculars while maintaining a stellar GPA.

The recipient is following his brother from Oakton High School to the University of Virginia.  Many UVa  as well as Oakton garments were used in the design,  There is a  Tennessee shirt as this is the alma mater of both parents.

The original lettering for the school name ran down the entire length of the sleeve, thus makin it too long to fit in a typical block.  Luckily the word divides into 2 syllables each with 3 letters and I was able to create an interesting layout.

This T. Rex shirt must have been worn when the recipient was a small child as the size was tiny.  I personally love this design as the dinosaur is so cute.

'm talking PGA. Pro Tour 2 I'm Attorney Beck on the TV in my golfin' shoes

This quilt was designed a memorial for the dad of the recipient.  His daughter had kept many of his shirts after his death but never put them together.  Her husband (the son-in=law) commissioned this as a Christmas present. 

The honoree was an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame and  Fordham University School of Law.   In addition to practicing law, he was a lover of golf, both as a player and spectator.

He also gave back to his community as a volunteeer firefighter in Larchmont, NY,

A lawyer was playing golf when he got hit by a ball. When the player came over looking for the ball, the lawyer said "I'm a lawyer, and this will cost you $5,000." "I'm sorry," said the golfer, "But I did say 'fore'." "I'll take it," said the lawyer.

She DOES play that sport, sisters and lacrosse, Real talk, the dogs done finished her off.

Such a fun story: Over a decade ago, I created 3 quilts for 3 sisters who all played lacrosse at their local high school and respective universities.   At my initial consultation with the mom at her house, I vaguely recalled a little girl very interested in the process of designing the layouts.  The mother saved my contact information and 13 years later got in touch with me as the fourth sister had grown up and it was time for her quilt.  Thank goodness I hadn't changed my email address!

Like her older siblings, the recipient was an avid swimmer in her youth and played lacrosse and field hockey at Woodson High School.

She attended American University and is now a lacrosse coach at Lehigh University.

I think it is wonderful that her entire family were all excellent participants in the same athletic endeavor,

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!"

And she's been working on her game Because life is taxing Gotta get it together and see what's happening

This quilt was made for the sister and cousin of three previous recipients,  She is an excellent lacrosse player, so good in fact that she earned a full scholarship to play at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Instead of using a solid piece or pieces of fabric for the backing,  we used a green for the middle fabric and appliqued both her high school cardinal mascot and college buffalo mascot as opposing teams.

I then used more of the buffalo fabric that was used for the sashing and borders above the field and red cardinals below.

When the recipient was a little girl, she and her dad were members of the Indian Princess YMCA program,  My sister and dad were also in the Indian Princess program way back in the 1970s.  I don't remember my sister's Princess name but my dad was Bumbling Bear.

In any case I rearranged all the patches from the vest to fit them in the 14.5 " square block.  Luckily all the patches had only been glued onto the vest.   It was a tight squeeze but it was doable.

I was able to keep the zipper intact for this block.  I love retaining the architectural elements of garments such as hoodies, pockets, buttons. and zippers.

The recipient's paternal grandmother's father was a US Congressman from Iowa who served in the House in the 1950s and 60s, making this t shirt very vintage.

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!

Is your name Michael Norton? No mine's Clarence.

The recipient of this queen-sized quilt is the sibling of two previous clients.  He is both an Oakton High School and James Madison University alumnus. He was a typical student having summer jobs, running track in high school and joining Sigma Nu at JMU.  His bio-brother is also his fraternity brother which made him a legacy.

The mother wanted to incorporate more than just t shirts.  The two following pictures depict blocks made from his preschool tote bag.  Obviously the recipient was a big Thomas the Tank Engine fan back in the day.

The borders of these blocks were made from a dress shirt that both boys wore when they were little.  The brother's quilt also uses this gingham.

Nick Norton, Sigma Nu, and Mr U-V

This quilt's recipient is an undergrad alumnus of the University of Virginia  and earned his Master's of Architecture at California Polytechnic State University—San Luis Obispo.  The older sibling's graduation from Duke had been commemorated here.   

 

The recipient and his brother are members of Sigma Nu, albeit at different universities. 

When choosing the backing, I used UVa fabric and a fabric depicting commercial buildings.  Although this was a home decorating weight material, I really thought it was appropriate for an architect's quilt.

 

A nickname Wahoo , well, my faith is not Majus. Girlies on the tippy because my homie is Tejas

 This quilt was made for a 2023 graduate whose dad had originally commissioned a quilt commemorating the mom's athletic accomplishments nearly a decade prior to now.

The recipient is a graduate of Oakton High School and is now a first-year at the University of Virginia aspiring to get admitted to the McIntire School of Commerce.   Unlike other universities that admit students into a specific college as incoming freshmen, Cavaliers have to apply during their sophomore year to be accepted to the program.

He is an avid fan of all the professional Washington sports teams denoted by the fact that the parents insisted on all 4 polar fleeces being used for the back.  This made it a cozy quilt which was perfect for the miserable winter the Commonwealth has been having this year.

    As depicted by all his team shirts, he was on various sports teams as well as being a fan.

My name might be Hinteregger, or maybe it's Ryan If I said that I was weak, man, you know I'd be lying

This quilt was created for a recent high school graduate of a Sydney, NSW prep school.  He is an American-Australian dual citizen due to one of his parents being an expat from Boston.

I used the same layout as his sibling's quilt but of course using his school colors of red, black, and yellow.  Because his expat parent is a HUGE Massachusetts sports teams fan and the internet makes following seasons so easy, this young man is also a rabid sports nut. I was given the school blazer, a pair of soccer socks, 6 pockets from the school dress shirts, 2 ties, some polos, and a team jersey.  

 I had a good bit more of his uniforms than I did with his sister, but still had to supplement a bit with extra fabrics and Boston pro team garments.  I was able to find a Red Sox uniform that provided me with the logo, a former player's name and team number, and the name of the city on the front,. 

I also found 2 team t shirts (Celtics and more Red Sox!) in my local area which is surprising as I do not live near Massachusetts.  I couldn't find Patriots nor Bruins shirts around my vicinity but was able to find licensed fabric for these fracnchises and appliqued the dress shirt pockets to them. 

The students at the school wear ties as part of their uniforms, The dark one was a bit shorter than the red so I am guessing it was for the Lower School and the red one was for the Upper School.

The school is large enough that the students are split into houses to provide a more close-knit environment within a bigger institution.  The recipient was in the Maloney House which was named after the first student enrolled at the school back in 1937.

I sewed both the  blazer and part of a button-down shirt into a quilt block.  I did have to move the pockets closer to the midpoints so more of those features would be visible.

 

The mom was able to get an entire roll of the ribbon trim that is used on the blazer pockets and sleeves.  This was perfect for making a tiny patch on a big background more interesting.

This was given to him over Christmas as they had come back to the US for their first post-pandemic visit.  Quilts are expensive to ship even with the US borders so they knew to bring an extra suitcase for something like this.

Oh Livvy I can’t live without ya Everyday my life I’m talking bout ya All Of my friends they go on about ya Olivi uh uh, Olivia!

This was made for an expat's child who lives in Sydney.  The family visits stateside about every 3 years.  She graduated from high school in December 2020 (they are half a year off being in the Southern Hemisphere) and matriculated to the same university where one of her parents went to graduate school.  It is extremely expensive to ship something as heavy as a quilt from the US to AU so the recipient had to wait until they next visited their American relatives.

Students in Australia don't collect as many t shirts as do kids in the US.  However they do wear school uniforms and the parent supplied me with several school crests. dance team logos, and other tiny pieces of the uniform.   I was sent a small ziploc bag containing about 13 items that I wanted to turn into a decent sized quilt.  Eventually a lot of extra fabrics that reflected the recipient's interests were included.

The recipient's name is also the name of a children's book character .and luckily there was licensed fabric with the image and coordinating prints to go with it .  I didn't know if a young female adult wanted to be associated with a pig (the character) so I just used the coordinate.

This was not a surprise quilt so I communicated directly with the recipient for favorite colors, animals, university major, etc. 

Thank goodness for the internet.  I was able to find the uniform supplier website so I could see the prints of the seasonal garments.  The girls wear a blue plaid skirt and navy blazer in the winter, similar to what a lot of prep school kids have to wear in the United States.The blouse has piping on the sleeve that is the same plaid as the skirt. 

  

However, their summer uniform is very different to anything I have seen locally.  The summer uniform is a pinstripe shapeless dress which reminded me of hospital candystriper outfits.  They also wear a hat with a very wide brim to help protect them from the lack of an ozone layer over Australia.

I was able to match the pinstripe summer uniform fairly easily to a quilting cotton.  For the skirt fabric, I was able to find a tartan but then dyed it with a royal blue color as to make it match better as it originally had too much of a turquoise tone.

The recipient is a dual citizen so she was able to attend NASA Space Camp in her early high school years.  

I was given 3 MSCW crests, several MSCW letters, and one embroidery of just the crown, and some dance images. With a bit of sashing, the crests were made into 6 inch blocks.  The other tiny images and lettering were appliqued on greyish feline fabric since she loved cats and the color grey.  She also liked pale pink so I made sure to use that as well to feminize the predominantly blue quilt. I also heard she liked to go out a lot once Covid restrictions were lifted so I was very happy that the pink fabric had high heels as the motif.  The tiny logo rectangles were a bit boring by themselves so I framed each one with blue and white gingham ribbon.

The recipient is currently a biochemistry major at the University of New South Wales.  I incorporated some science-themed blocks as well as a UNSW recyclable bag that I had received at an Idealist Education Fair when representing my own alma mater.  The bag is NOT cotton but some highly heat-sensitive poly fiber so I included a written warning never to iron the yellow block as it will melt.   The white horizontal strips are from the sleeves of the uniform blouse and between the actual piping and the uniform website, I was able to create a fairly similar plaid.