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,

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.

Too much drama all around Distractions booming in sensuround

Yet another t shirt quilt but this time for a kid who marches to her own drummer.  Most of the t shirt quilts are set in a grid format but I was allowed to think outside the box. I made a gigantic outline of the state of Vermont and made sure all the garments could fit within the state.  Once the state was cut, I appliqued it on the background with binding tape as it was too thick to hem the edges.  I had designed a Commonwealth of Virginia quilt a couple of years ago but I was able to make a narrow hem without involving binding as Virginia was made from quilting cottons, not garment textiles backed with interfacing/

The recipient was very active in plays and musicals in high school.  She also attended Governor's School, a very prestigious opportunity for high school students.  Before she lived in Vermont, she lived in Virginia and I was able to dig up a shirt from her FCPS elementary school.

As most of you know, Vermont is a VERY cold state, especially in the area where the recipient calls home.  So not only did she have a cozy high school scarf to add to her quilt....

but also an old ski cap!

The recipient has now relocated to a warmer state (smart girl! :) ) for college and is now a member of Chi Omega at George Mason University.

And there's a magic in the sound of their name Here come the Irish of Notre Dame

I recently had the pleasure of creating a memory quilt for a brand-new University of Notre Dame alumna.  Hailing from Oakton High School in Virginia, she spent her last 4 years in South Bend.  The client wanted a puzzle piece design with multiple size blocks as opposed to a traditional t shirt quilt with sashing between the blocks.

The recipient was very involved in multiple activities, completing several several marathons and other road races as well as being a member of academic and athletic clubs.

Because Notre Dame does not recognize social fraternities or sororities, dorm life is very important to students. They are similar to houses at prep schools.

Like the vast majority of current students and alumni, the recipient is a HUGE fan of the Fighting Irish. Every year the alumni association creates a special shirt for Notre Dame football.  The fronts and backs of the 2017-2020 shirts are included in this quilt as well as a column of the mini-designs from the sleeves.  Despite making several Notre Dame quilts over the years AND the fact that my uncle is the stereotypical alumnus, I never knew about The Shirt tradition before this commission.

Meat Pie, Sausage Roll Come On Kearny, Give us a goal OOH, We Got a Corner!

The recipient for this full-sized fennel quilt played a LOT of soccer all over the world as well as rowing crew in the US.

I was asked specifically to applique the patch on this Stuttgart shirt as it indicated a championship for this team.

This block was a combination of sections from her Stuttgart Eagles UnderArmor shirt along with a front pocket design of the tie-dyed grey shirt.

Singlets or middies are too narrow for a full block due to the armhole cutouts.  Hence I added red knit fabric so it could square off to the 14.5" block.

As always, I felt I really knew the recipient by the time I finished the quilt.

And I've been k-kicking the new k-knowledge An emcee to a degree that you can't get in college

This is yet another Webster University Gorlok quilt.  I really loved making this one as I discovered an extra-fun design from Sew Adorkable.  Back in the day when our calculators could just do simple operations, we used to write words using the number pad and then flipping the calculator upside down.  Basically any word using only the letters B E H I G L O S could be written.  The girls tended to type in 0.7734 (when the fours used to be written with  2 vertical and one horizontal line rather than the modern 1 vertical, one horizontal, and one diagonal)   and the boys would write 58008 and variations thereof.

In any case, the recipient's name is Bobbie and of course her name can be written on a calculator.  She had several Webster World Works shirts with numbers on them and other Webster items as well.  Not all the numbers on the keyboard have an actual number shirt but she did have a mousepad we used for the decimal point key and the bottoms from drink koozies that were used for the dots on the division sign. I was also supplied with a couple of Webster totebags that we incorporated as well. 

 

 

The mousepad was difficult to applique and didn't look great when it was done so I embellished the circumference with a gold lace.  All the quilting was just machine-stippling.

 

 

And then someone snuck into my quilt studio and decided to help....

 

I  rarely take photographs of myself but our Main Campus asked the various departments to depict ourselves doing something fun and/or silly.  As I explained in the statement that was submitted with the pictures, quilting is fun for me and I know the design was silly but I couldn't resist as I am sort of a geek at heart.

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.

Hear the beat of dancing feet, It's the song I love, the melody of Forty-Second Street.

Many of the recipients of my quilts have seen my work elsewhere and then want something created to reflect his or her life.  This quilt was no exception..The person who received this quilt was a classmate of a fellow LB Bruin.

We decided to veer away from the typical sashing grid design by making the quilt look like a Broadway Playbill. while sticking to a twin/tarragon size.  Both fonts were sized up to scale. The letters for the larger word were appliqued onto the yellow background.  The smaller word was drawn with permanent fabric markers.

Most playbills usually have white borders but since this quilt was headed off to college, we went with grey as it would be easier to keep clean.

This shirt was designed as a plain white shirt with the black lettering.  The kids involved in this show had wanted to tie-dye the shirts but never got around to it.   I drew a rainbow on both the big design and mini design using permanent fabric markers.