Born and branched the Air Force for the USA They call me Silas Johnson but I'm MGJ

This quilt was made for a retired 2-star USAF general who served our country for over 3 decades.  Based on old movies, I knew pilots used to wear white scarves while flying but I never realized that in later years the squadrons and other units had scarves designed specifically for their organizations.  

I was presented with a big box of aviator scarves.  The vast majority were silk or a poly/silk blend.  Two scarves from Guam were made from barkcloth.  Most of the scarves had crests on the end with a repeating pattern in the middle.  I ended up arranging the crests into blocks and bordering them with the middle sections.  There were so many different pieces that I made a spreadsheet to keep things organized.  There were 65 lines of 8 columns detailing color, direction, unit, size of deconstructed scarf, crest quantities, crest design, crest size, block assignment.

The polka dots were from the recipient's very first unit.  This was more of bib than a scarf as the original garment was about 18 by 18 with a longer strip with snaps fastened at the back of the neck.  Most of the scarves were long, thin rectangles.

The fabrics of the scarves were very slippery, stretchy, and thin.   Some of the satin blends were shiny .  I backed everything with fusible interfacing,

Two of the scarves were made from barkcloth.  Not surprisingly these were both from Guam, as barkcloth originated in the Polynesian islands.   

I really enjoyed the mathematical challenge of designing this quilt.  Trying to incorporate as many of the different designs into a prescribed parameter while still being visually pleasing was a lot of fun.       

  

 

Rules in the office they don't need to imply I hate having to wear my shirt and tie

This was a wonderful project to memorialize a family member.  I had 12 ties belonging to a father of 2 women, grandfather to a third.  One of the daughters had saved his ties and wanted small pillows made from them for her sister, her daughter and herself.

Most quilt blocks are square.  The daughter wanted small rectangular pillows so I skewed two of the designs from a 12 x block to a 9 x 15 dimension.  One of the recipient's is named Katie so I immediately thought Katie's Choice would be an ideal pillow for that woman.  The pillow is a modification of  this traditional memory block. 

The next two pillows are exactly the same.  The pattern is called Thousand Pyramids and many quilters showcase their entire stash in a scrap quilt made from this design.  I was easily able to use all 12 ties in each of the pillows

The last pillow is a modification of a Chinese Lantern block.  I have been in the client's house and had a strong sense of her style and color preferences so when I suggested this design, she was delighted right away. You can see from the very first picture that the pillow coordinates with her dining room rug 

quite nicely.

I have created several projects with men's ties over the years.  Although tie fabric tends to be silky, slippery, stretchy and thus needs a good bit of prep work, the sheen just creates such a beautiful finish.

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.

Put on your yarmulke, here comes Hanukkah, Its so much fun-akkah to celebrate Hanukkah,

These bolster pillows were given to siblings on their first night of Hannukah,  The brother followed his sister to the University of Michigan where they are both Wolverines.

As usual, we were able to incorporate not just t shirts and sweatshirts, but also a Bengals fleece scarf, a silk tie and.a satin yarmulke. Both kids were very busy as it was difficult to include all the shirts.

The yarmulke was from the daughter's Bat Mitzvah.  The seams of the curved panels were undone and moved to 2 groups of 3 panels each.  We were then able to incorporate the polo shirt of the overnight camp that both kids attended as campers and later as staff.  The image doesn't show it as the light was too strong but the other white triangle was from the lining of the yarmulke which had been stamped with the Bat Mitzvah girl's name and date of the ceremony.

The son's quilt also used a camp staff shirt as well as the tie from his Bar Mitzvah.  The tie was in an actual tie shape in one end of the bolster and as piping for the entire bolster.

Jack, Luke, Ryan, that's our team. Step inside the party disrupt the whole scene.

These 3 bolster pillows were made for 3 recent grads of Worcester Prep.  The 3 recipients have been great friends all through the upper school grades.  All 3 are avid athletes on the field, whether it be lacrosse or soccer.

 

The school tie was used in each of the pillows.  From back to front, you can see it as piping, as vertical sashing, and finally as the focus on an actual shirt and tie block.  The right square on the back bolster was to designed to commemorate the uncle of the recipient.

 

In this block, you can see that I have now added yet another textile to my repetoire.  The left square on the front bolster incorporates a W&L Trident gym sock.  I love this recipient's mom.  She always comes up with amazing ideas and items.  The red sashing (vertical in the back bolster and horizontal in the middle and front ones) is actually from a Virgin Airlines blanket.  The senior class all traveled to Great Britain during a Spring Break and one of the boys brought home the airplane blanket as a souvenir.

 

The grey sashing is from the uniform pants worn by the male students.  Grey plaid and dark green plaid uniforms were also incorporated but they were from female student skirts .  The right block on the front bolster was to designed to commemorate the life of the recipient's uncle.

 

These fine young men will be attending Washington and Lee University, UNC-Wilmington, and Michigan State.

Now push the pause button then start DUCKing. Shhhhh you heard me like I'm E.F. Hutton.

These three Bay Leaf Bolsters are a new design.  Each pillow used elements of 8 shirts, two uniform skirts, and 1 school tie. Rather than making 2 4-square pillow faces for a front and back pillow, we thought it would be fun to make bolsters for the new graduates' dorm room beds.

The three graduates all attended Worcester Prep.  Two are off to Furman and the third is matriculating at Lynchburg College. 

The first set of pictures show both sides of the bolster.  The student was a lacrosse player both for his school and for a travel team.  The Cropper Concrete shirt is from the family business.

The next pair are the sides of a fellow lacrosse player.  He also was heavily involved in Appalachian Service Project.  The last pair of images is from the bolster for the girl who graduated.  She also was a lacrosse player at the travel and school level.

The circles at either end were primarily made from the front pocket designs of the t shirts.  However in the second of the two pictures, the leftmost pillow used the girl's uniform blouse and the middle pillow incorporated a pair of shorts.

The  piping was made from the upper school girls' Black Watch skirt and the horizontal sashing in the body of the bolster was made from the middle school grey plaid uniform.  The vertical sashing was created from the school regimental tie.

She said "You call yourself a doctor?" I said "This is true." She said "Explain to me really what doctors must do."

This was a quilt that was commissioned by four adult sons in memory of their father.  The dad was born in Italy, came over the US at age 13 and apparently learned English quite rapidly as he went to Rutgers at 18 followed by Jefferson Medical College at 22.  Being a member of a more formal generation., the good doctor was given a tie by each of his four boys on every gift-giving occasion.

I received 3 bankers file boxes full of ties and the instructions to make a modern, vibrant quilt with this fairly sedate neckwear.  We went back and forth with different designs and it was actually both of our sons who came up with the final layout. My kiddo has a strong artistic sense and the recipient's son is an Industrial Design major at Carnegie Mellon, go Tartans!  

I used 132 ties in this wallhanging which barely made a dent in one box. The vast majority were silk which involved a lot of prep work to get them to behave properly in a quilt.  Each 4" right triangle was separated by 2" sashing so that the busy patterns would not clash with each other. I incorporated plaids, stripes, Italian brocades, skinny ties, wide ties.  I used the boldest prints in the boxes staying away from browns and tans. The sashing was quilted but the ties were left unquilted so they could pop a bit.

 

The red, blue and yellow triangle is from a pharmaceutical company tie. Many people know that Depression-era quilters used feedsacks in their work. Many dry goods at that time came in a fabric sack that was printed decoratively. What I did not know was that pharmaceutical companies would give away ties to physicians, many times with an enlarged print of the microscopic image.


Although I am glad I accepted this challenge as it caused me to push my creativity in a new direction, I am somewhat relieved that my own father rarely wore a tie to work as he was a research scientist in a lab and did not dress up except for lectures.