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

I was privileged to make baby quilts for a set of boy/girl twins,  The parents don't have a genetic history of multiple births nor were they on fertility treatment so this was a complete shock!  Both parents did great especially mom who had to deal with hyperemesis gravidarum for the entire 9 months.

As the babies grew bigger and had less and less space in utero, the mother kept comparing the fetuses to monkeys as they were kicking and wiggling constantly.  I stumbled across the most apropos fabric at a quilter's estate sale.  It had pairs of monkeys hugging each other which was perfect for the girl but there was too much pink for the boy. I really prefer making gender-specific quilts for babies. The other problem is that there was only a 1/2 yard which was not enough and since it was an older print, impossible to find online.

I gave up and eventually found 2 different but coordinating jungle panels but THEN a couple of weeks later, went to a sale at Fabric Place Basement (awesome all-purpose fabric store with locations in Virginia and Massachusetts) to peruse their $2.99 sales table/. The sale had only first-quality LQS level brands but just older, discontinued designs.  In any case, they had slightly over a yard of  the monkey print.  I also discovered there was a coordinating print of pairs of bears.  

I wanted to have both pairs of animals in both quilts so I cut the stripes to have both monkeys and bears in both quilts but the alternating strips to be pink in the girl's print and blue in the boy's.  I had just enough of a 30's print of white elephants on an orange background in my stash for the borders.

Oh, but love grows where my Rosemary goes And nobody knows like me

Hey look me over, rate me a 10.  Philip my glass and I'll chug it down again

I have pictures of the babies on their respective quilts but parents who came of age during the Internet era are very cautious about allowing pictures of their minor children to be posted online.  I think this is very wise.

I wanna be a Pi Beta Phi. Boom, Boom, and honey that ain’t no lie.Boom, Boom, I wanna be a Pi Beta Phi. Don’t you, don’t you, don’t you, Won’t you?

This quilt is made for a very loyal alumna of Bradley University. She pledged the Illinois Theta chapter of Pi Beta Phi as an undergraduate and is currently very involved in her local Pi Phi Alumnae Association. She also is a dog trainer extraordinaire and volunteers with her pets at local hospitals.

 

These shirts are quite vintage but they were in remarkably good shape.  Most of the sorority shirts I come across nowadays are t shirts that commemorate a formal or mixer.  I haven't seen a football jersey letter shirt in years except of course on this circa 1980s shirt quilt. :) Of course fraternity little sisters are not allowed anymore either.

 

The athletic teams at this university are known as the Bradley Braves.  The recipient was able to find a tiny applique patch of the original mascot.  The Native American mascot was ultimately considered offensive and is no longer in use.  They currently use the same team name but the mascot is a gargoyle.

 

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

Lex Vegas Love

This quilt was made for a Washington and Lee General who married a Keydet from the Virginia Military Institute.  VMI and W&L are both located in Lexington and happen to share a wall between the two campuses.  VMI graduated 2 weeks before Washington and Lee so they were married during the in-between week.

For the fabric selection, I was very excited to find some leftover Christmas Angel fabric in my stash as well as a dark carnation print with maroon background and the allover big pinkish carnation motif. Because the girl is a W&L Pi Phi, the wine fabric with the strands of pearls is very apropos. Some of those female Generals wear pearls even when they are working out. The print with the tiny hearts worked for a wedding quilt without making it cloyingly sweet.

The design is an arrow design that I found at Quilters's Cache. Pi Beta Phi's colors are wine and silver blue so I used 16 different dark reds and 16 different greys and blues. For the fabric selection, I was very excited to find some leftover Christmas Angel fabric as well as a dark carnation print with maroon background and the allover big pinkish carnation motif. Because the girl is a W&L Pi Phi, the wine fabric with the strands of pearls is very apropos. Some of those female Generals wear pearls even when they are working out. The print with the tiny hearts worked for a wedding quilt without making it cloyingly sweet.

In the big silver blue open spaces I quilted the W&L trident

and the VMI Spider.  Every other area was heavily stippled.

How many Virginia college students does it take to change a light bulb?

VMI students: One Rat to actually change the bulb, one upperclassman toy yell at him for not doing it fast enough, one to yell at him for not using the proper wattage, and one to send him up to the Rat DisciplinaryCommittee for letting the bulb burn out in the first place.

Washington and Lee students: Four, one to change the bulb, and three to write up a complaint to the board of directors stating that they couldhave gone to a better school if they had wanted to.

Pi Phi! Oh my! 'Cause them angels look so fly!

This queen-sized quilt was made for an alumna of Wake Forest who is now a law student at William and Mary.  As you can see, she also is a member of the Pi Beta Phi woman's fraternity.  Yay, Monmouth Duo!! 

This quilt incorporated some unusual fabrics. The Wake Forest fans wave around a Rally Rag (lowest row, center) at the games.  This is a small terrycloth towel. Apparently by joining the Screamin' Demons. students can pay $30 per season to sit in the student section of the athletic arenas.  They are given the black and gold tie-dye shirt (top right-hand corner) to wear at the games.

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I cut the greek letters from the extra fabric of the Screamin' Demon shirt. These letters are the same size as the letters that you would see a sorority girl wear on a sweatshirt or jersey. I satin-stitched both the white outline fabric and the Screamin Demon fabric with a stabilizer. The grey was from the back of one of the grey shirts used in the quilt

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
As usual, I kept anything 3-D on the blocks if possible.  I was able to retain the pocket on the hoodie block and the drawstring and buttons on the lounge pants.. I used surplus fabric from the lounge pants to make the large WF block.

The neckerchief  (center) had a very large design so it needed to be cut no smaller than 18" x 18".  T-shirt quilt blocks are usually 15" x 15" so I had to find 4 shirts that would lend themselves to be longer than normal and four that could be wider.  The fabric I chose for the sashing, borders, and binding was mostly black and gold but with touches of mauve and grayish-blue which are close to the Wine and Silver Blue of Pi Beta Phi.  I quilted this fabric with a light yellow thread which gave it a cloisonné look.



Monmouth Duo!

Here is a link to the Schlep Bag by Sentimental Stitches.  It was one of the first bags I ever attempted and I was very pleased with the results. A quilt guild member displayed her Schlep bag during show-and-tell and then by the next meeting at least 5 other members had obviously been inspired as they showed their versions.

I made 2 versions, one for my favorite Pi Phi and a Kappa version for me.  Yes, we have the Monmouth Duo in our family as my sister and I are both Kappa Kappa Gamma ( ΚΚΓ) alumnae and my oldest is a Pi Beta Phi (ΠΒΦ)active.

The Pi Beta Phi-themed bag had a deep red print with pearls strewn across it (very appropriate for a school where the coeds wear pearls to the gym!), specific Pi Phi fabric with letters and arrows, a Marcus Brothers 30's reproduction fabric with little winged hearts and arrows, and finally, a light blue South Seas Imports fabric with carnations.  The lining of the bag used fabrics with angel motifs.

The Kappa Kappa Gamma-themed bag used a tone-on-tone navy print, a Timeless Treasures print that depicted owls against a deep blue sky. specific Kappa fabric with letters and keys, and then a tone-on-tone print with little fleur-de-lis.  The lining fabrics were random blues. 

Kappa Kappa Gamma and Pi Beta Phi were both founded at Monmouth College in the 1800s, hence the name Monmouth Duo.