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. 

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.

Je m'appelle Darlington. M and D in the chateau and we got it going on.

This Watercress wallhanging is to celebrate the marriage of a Gorlok and her fiancé.  She is a lovely person and I wish her the best!

There for the blue of the sky and the sea and they bind our hearts so true.....

This is another multi-year accomplishment from the Kappa Needleworkers.  This is an interest group of the Northern Virginia Alumnae Association of Kappa Kappa Gamma.  These ladies get together once a month to put a quilt together (that's why it takes a couple of years for each one to be completed). This quilt is hand-pieced, hand-appliqued and hand-quilted.  After the quilt is completed,  it is raffled for an entire year to raise money for Reading is Fundamental (RIF), the Kappa Kappa Gamma philanthropy.

And like a bottle of Chateau Scott and Nat, I'm fine like wine when I start to rap

This quilt was made as a wedding gift for  a lovely couple way back when but I only just recently obtained a picture of it.  They are practically a UN contingent all by themselves.  The bride is a dual French-US citizen, the groom is Australian.  They met in college in Canada and now live in the EU.

The design was inspired by a Becky Beierle motif.   The material for the bottle is actually a metallic cotton, MUCH easier to manipulate than the typical metallic fabric which frays terribly.

The bottle was pieced as 2 green sections, the white label and the brown cork.  Once it was a unit, it was hand-appliqued onto a background. The grape, leaves, and vines were hand-tinted. and the quilt was entirely hand-quilted.

We've got our own hospital, the U of the G. It's no question, life's been good to me.

This Hyssop/Handwork project was different than my usual commission as it took me back to my first love of hand-embroidery.  Back in the days of the dinosaurs, my kindergarten teacher taught all of us (girls AND boys (traditional roles were just beginning to be blurred) how to do basic embroidery stitches, I am guessing to improve our fine  motor skills. We used burlap and acrylic knitting wool.  Somewhere in my parents' attic, there may be even be an ancient remnant of my first stitching endeavor.

In any case, I moved onto needlepoint and crewelwork at age 9 and actually won an EGA award at the local level when I was in elementary school. In junior high, I put down the needle and focused on academics until I was out of college.  Once I was an Army officer's wife with a little one in tow, I started to stitch again.  Cross-stitch and quilting were very popular pasttimes at Ft Knox but needlepoint? not so much.  So my neighbor Melissa taught me how to cross-stitch and my other neighbor Laurel taught me traditional hand -piecing and quilting.  I was a handquilter as opposed to using my machine for quilting as my machine couldn't handle it.  Once I bought the Bernina, that changed. I still love handwork but just don't have as much time so I do a lot more by machine.

So when this commission arose, I jumped at it.  Apparently there is a formal group of retired doctors who had privileges at Georgetown University Hospital.  Now that they are retired and their wives want them out of the house (kidding!), they regularly meet for lunch.  They call themselves the Georgetown Romeos which stands for Retired Old Men Eating Out.

Oscar Mann (the intended recipient) has been spearheading the group for years but is now stepping down.  In appreciation for his work as coordinator, the Romeos all signed a tablecloth that is apparently an actual linen from the restaurant where they have met for decades.   They started signing the tablecloth before I saw the project, otherwise I would have suggested methods to improve the symmetry.

I think this is such a nice gift for someone who has everything! I have only met one of the members but if they are even half as delightful as he is, then this is definitely a fun-loving group.  The contact was a Notre Dame alumnus who graduated in the same class with Regis Philbin