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.

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.