Rosmarinus Designs

Here's one for the bleachers and the upper tier UVA All-Cavalier

2026-06-25T18:11:45.122-07:00

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

2026-02-28T18:49:00.000-08:00

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.

2025-12-31T08:11:00.000-08:00

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,

Well, I am Ms. Peri, I'm very On, rock the microphone, and then I'm gone

2025-07-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

This was a blast from the past recipient! Many years ago, I created quilts for two brothers, My son and the recipient's sons had been in the same Boy Scout troop but of course all the boys are now well into adulthood pursuing careers and raising families.

The recipient had an aunt who handpieced and hand appliqued this cheerful springy quilt top many years ago. The quilt top had never been put together as a quilt. It was in fairly good shape despite the passing decades. Unfortunately it was cost-prohibitive to quilt this beauty by hand so the recipient opted for machine quilting.

We appliqued a simple label to the back reading as follows

Hand-pieced and hand-appliqued by Pauline "Aunt Polly " Miller in 1960.

I love football! I love football! I love football!That’s my reason That’s why I chat about the whole damn season

2025-04-03T15:18:00.000-07:00

This is a quilt made for an avid footie fan/former player. Playing for travel teams in childhood, Langley Saxons in high school, culminating as a Christopher Newport University Captain, he amassed a tremendous amount of tournament patches as well as shirts.

I was thrilled to obtain the soccer field fabric designed by Robert Kaufmann as I knew it would be a great way to highlight some of the patches. Many years ago, Robert Kaufmann came out with basketball court, hockey rink, American football gridiron, and soccer pitch designs. Like most fabric manufacturers, RK had a limited print run on designs. Once ithey're gone. they're gone, :( However, one of my favorite fabric stores that tends to carry older fabric was my saving grace yet again and they had this design in stock.

The left side of the field has light blue and grey patches representing the CNU Captains and the right side are the green and gold of Langley High School. The remaining patches were sewn on the various t shirt blocks.

The recipient picked up the quilt with his daughter and son. He asked them where it should be put in the house obviously thinking the family room but the children simultanrously laid claim to the quilt shouting "my room!"

And she's been working on her game Because life is taxing Gotta get it together and see what's happening

2024-12-30T17:05:00.000-08:00

This quilt was made for the sister and cousin of three previous recipients, She is an excellent lacrosse player, so good in fact that she earned a full scholarship to play at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Instead of using a solid piece or pieces of fabric for the backing, we used a green for the middle fabric and appliqued both her high school cardinal mascot and college buffalo mascot as opposing teams.

I then used more of the buffalo fabric that was used for the sashing and borders above the field and red cardinals below.

When the recipient was a little girl, she and her dad were members of the Indian Princess YMCA program, My sister and dad were also in the Indian Princess program way back in the 1970s. I don't remember my sister's Princess name but my dad was Bumbling Bear.

In any case I rearranged all the patches from the vest to fit them in the 14.5 " square block. Luckily all the patches had only been glued onto the vest. It was a tight squeeze but it was doable.

I was able to keep the zipper intact for this block. I love retaining the architectural elements of garments such as hoodies, pockets, buttons. and zippers.

The recipient's paternal grandmother's father was a US Congressman from Iowa who served in the House in the 1950s and 60s, making this t shirt very vintage.

Um, how much sound from the brass to the air Will it take, to put your cheers in the air? (Pardon me there)

2024-08-26T18:21:00.000-07:00

The recipient was not only a trumpeter for the marching bands both at Thomas Jeffersosn High School of Science and Technology and at the University of Virginia, he majored in music. TJHSST, referred interchangeably as either TJ or Jefferson, is a public magnet school that is currently ranked 14th in the nation. In his spare time during his US Presidential terms, Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia.

When the recipient graduated from UVA back in 2016, he had cut up his shirts in different sized squares and hemmed them with gigantic stitches. He then glued them on a fleece blanket that had the Cavalier Marching Band logo machine-embroidered in the lower-right corner.

He was never pleased with the results so his mom contacted me to see if we could "fix it" for his birthday. She wanted to incorporate the blanket in its entirety. Neither mom or son had any idea what kind of glue had been used back then. I was really nervous that him being a TJ grad AND a guy that he had used Gorilla Glue or something even stronger. I did a test and discovered that it was a water-soluble adhesive. I soaked the blanket in a bathtub and found all the squares had become free and were floating independently. I then washed all the squares and the now plain blanket to get rid of any remaining stickiness.

He wanted a masculine sashing so he opted for a blue and white plaid with rust accents. Upon initial layout of the squares against the plaid, I could tell the design really needed a solid to both separate the busy plaid from some of the busier designs and to unify the square sizes. This Kona grey set off squares nicely.

The original blanket had curved corners so I machine-appliqued the entire blanket on top of the flannel. Usually you would add sashing by sewing the strips to the outer edge of the fleece. This is a great quilt for the winter as it has 4 layers, top, batting, fleece, and flannel.

Happy Birthday!

Is your name Michael Norton? No mine's Clarence.

2024-06-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

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

2024-06-05T15:52:00.000-07:00

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.

To all the party people who are happy and free, Tsouras and Foley rewriting history

2024-04-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

This was a very special commission to create. An elderly gentleman wanted a quilt made from his AND his wife's Army uniforms and patches. His wife had started to cut pieces from their uniforms but unfortunately had died before this was completed. All the fabrics had been cut into squares or rectangles, but he wanted circles in the design.

The recipient had met his future wife when they were both serving as 2LTs, Foley was the wife's maiden name and then they both were Tsouras after marriage. During this era, she was in the Women's Army Corps otherwise known as WACs.

There were so many patches that needed to be incorporated. Rank patches are easy to position directionally. Some of the unit and branch patches had to be identified as they were embroidered in subdued black for fatigues and were not easily discernable. I headed off to the museum at the nearest Army base and talked to a curator who provided information about the unknown patches. I did not want to place one sideways or upside down.

I only fastened the shoulder boards at their bases and then buttoned them to the quilt. The recipient had not provided buttons but I was able to find replacements at the PX. He had 12 shoulder boards but only 8 of the button flaps. Being short 4 flaps, I sourced 2 Class A shirts from my son's old BSA troop's uniform stash. The BSA shirts were a slightly paler, more oatmeal shade than the Army's khaki shirts but it wasn't noticeable.

The recipient had mentioned liking circular designs but had given me rectangular small cuts of fabric. I designed a double Dresden Plate out of a flight scarf for the inner circle, fatigue pants for the first plate and shirts for the outer plate. I also arranged the branch patches in 4 grids that looked somewhat circular.

I wanted a simple but interesting border. Originally, I was going to use the same licensed US Army fabric that I was using as the backing, but it was too busy as the border. I was lucky to find a burlap home decorating trim that was not only in Army green but also printed in a Greek Key design. The recipient had mentioned that he was first-generation Greek-American when we met so I knew this would be appropriate.

A nickname Wahoo , well, my faith is not Majus. Girlies on the tippy because my homie is Tejas

2024-01-24T11:56:00.000-08:00

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.

Said 'Who is the man making diamonds out of Cole?' The man pushing buttons on remote control

2023-06-13T18:40:00.003-07:00

This twin Tarragon quilt is called from Saint to Red Devil as the recipient just graduated from the St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School and will be matriculating to Dickinson College in the fall.

He loves basketball both on the court and in the stands. His paternal grandfather played for the University of Kentucky Wildcats back in the 1950s and the entire family are Wildcat fans. I was given a bit of UK fabric for the back but black strips had to be added to make it wide enough.

The recipient;s great grandfather (the father of the paternal grandmother) was Congressman Frederick Schwengel, R-IA who served in the US House of Representatives for 8 terms.

The paternal grandparents built a beautiful weekend retreat on the high banks on one of the many bays of the Potomac River. It is amazing to sit on the back porch and watch bald eagles swoop down to the water to catch dinner.

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

2023-03-25T07:07:00.013-07:00

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.

My name might be Hinteregger, or maybe it's Ryan If I said that I was weak, man, you know I'd be lying

2023-02-19T10:14:00.005-08:00

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.

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!

2023-02-18T20:46:00.011-08:00

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.

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

2023-01-27T19:03:00.006-08:00

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.

And Granddad, light up the place And if you pull my card, you pull the ace And if you ask me, turn up the bass And if you play defender, I could be your hyper space so

2022-12-29T18:24:00.003-08:00

My parents have loved to play the board game Sequence with their many grandchildren for decades (oldest one is well into the 30s and youngest just turned 18). So much so that I wanted to make a quilt for years but could never find playing card fabric that depicted each and every playing card without being overlapped AND would be a proper proportion.

Just before the COVID lockdown occurred back in March 2020, I found a pattern on Ravelry that depicted the playing cards in Tunisian crochet. I had never tried this technique and this was a BIG project so I gave myself a huge completion window for my father's 80th which occurs in February 2023 but ended up giving it to both my parents this Christmas.

There were some changes. The crocheted card designs are drastically simplified as compared to real playing cards. The wild card space in each corner was changed to a NY Yankees logo as my mother has been a fan all her life despite moving to Boston for college at 18 and remaining there the rest of her life.

Finally I changed the border to reflect the family surname rather than the word sequence plus the treatment of the jack card.

This was the first post;COVID Christnas we celebrated with everyone. My brother's family flew in from Australia and the oldest grandchild just had twins a couple of months ago.

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

2022-09-29T10:07:00.010-07:00

In celebration of a successful formal recruitment at the wearers' school, I am finally posting pictures of a joint order. Apparently at this university, the Chi Omegas do a lot of functions with the Sigma Chis. So much so that the ΣX boys are little brothers and the ΧΩ girls are the big sisters.

This is much different than in my day. While my sorority definitely tended to pair with certain fraternities at my university, it was not a formal joining. We were free to affiliate as individual members of fraternities as Little Sisters. Favorite guys of our sorority were called Keymen rather than Little Brothers.

In any case, the Chi Omega is a Sigma Chi Big to a specific Sigma Chi and he is correspondingly the Chi Omega Little to her. ΧΩ colors are red and yellow and ΣX colors are cobalt blue and yellow. I assumed they would want yellow as one of the colors as it ties in with both of their groups but they decided to eliminate yellow entirely and go with each of their other colors ie the red and cobalt. They also wanted the big/little relationship embroidered on the sleeve. My machine does not have that capability so the embroidery was done by hand using a running stitch.

What she asked of me at the end of the day Caligula would have blushed "Oh, you've been in the house too long" she said And I naturally fled

2022-04-04T16:22:00.005-07:00

So like many of us over the last 24 months I have spent a LOT of time at home. I was so bored that I learned how to crochet.

I had seen the African Flower hexagon technique that was used to make an owl. I used a J 5.25 mm hook and worsted weight yarn of various colors Once I learned the stitches, it was amazingly easy. I knew the hexagons were large but had no idea I would end up with a HUGE stuffed animal.

I then decided to make the same pattern using Kappa colors of dark and light blue since our mascot is an owl. I did not want such a huge owl so used a much skinnier fiber and smaller hook. This time I used a 1.5 mm hook and #10 crochet thread.

What a size difference the hook and fiber make! I found it much harder to crochet with this thread and tiny hook as opposed to the yarn and larger hook.

Here are the 2 owls together. They don't match at all but I wanted to show their proportions.

I have decided that I am officially hooked!

Well, just plug me in just like I was Eddie Harris You're eating crazy cheese like you would think I'm from Paris

2022-01-22T12:21:00.004-08:00

So I had a request to make a pillow from a particular outfit that a little child loved but outgrew. It was a long sleeved sequined t shirt and coordinated velvet leggings. The sequin design was pretty cool as when sequins were all overlapping downward like roof shingles, this Eiffel Tower appeared.

When you run your hand over the sequins so they overlap from bottom to top, a heart appears complete with the phrase Love Paris.

I used the front of the shirt for one side of the pillow and the back to be the base for a big monogram L. The letter was cut from the leggings and stitched with a variegated thread to make it pop from the t shirt color. I also used the leggings to make all the piping.

This will be a delightful addition to a girly-girl bedroom!

Too much drama all around Distractions booming in sensuround

2021-11-22T13:52:00.007-08:00

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.

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

2021-10-18T09:58:00.002-07:00

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.

Said she's your cousin that came for a visit Your putting me on, is this true, now who is it?

2021-09-16T13:05:00.003-07:00

Quilts for babies are so fun to make! The recipients are second cousins to each as they share a great-grandparent. Thanks to Covid, the recipients weren't able to be delivered until after the babies' first birthdays.

The first quilt is a double Irish Chain. The baby has a VERY Irish name and the mom requested bright colors so I chose a bright floral print to coordinate with gold and medium purple. I was commissioned to create a quilt for the older brother when he was born.

The second quilt is definitely non-traditional. The recipient's name is Ori which is the Hebrew word for light. After racking my brain thinking of lightning bolts and suns, the bulb clicked on and hence I thought a lightbulb theme would be fun.

I modified a public domain sketch to change the filament to spell the baby's name.

Weight on my shoulders and now I'm stressin' Gotta get back and count my blessings

2021-08-12T10:52:00.002-07:00

Once again, a Webster t shirt quilt was made for a departing employee from her old garments..She was not just a great employee but also a Marine wife and a competitive bodybuilder and weightlifter.

The employee was the Veterans Affairs School Certifying Official so when I was looking for theme fabric and saw this Va print, I snapped it up.

This was actually 2 different polo shirts that were vertically cut in half and the collars were reversed.

Best of luck in her new endeavors!

I love it when you hit those switches I curve ball what my pitch is So here we-here we come Like dum-ditty-dum I keep all three ladies in stitches

2021-07-07T08:09:00.005-07:00

This was an interesting project that includes 3 generations of first-born women. The grandmother (generation 1) apparently embroidered many blocks that compose a childhood prayer and put them together as a quilt top. She made this for her hope chest, well before she was a wife and mother. The embroidery is hand stitched as was the piecing. Originally the quilt was tied, not quilted.

The mom (generation 2) also had a different baby quilt.. Eventually it used as the batting for the embroidered quilt.

In the 1980s, generation 3 daughter was born. She was given the embroidered quilt at her birth and also had a cotton thermal blanket that she loved. This daughter is now a a PhD candidate at UVa focusing on American Art History.

By fall of 2020, the embroidered quilt was in rough shape. Both the backing and the quilt that had been used as the batting were shredded and the batting had shifted. The quilt had only been tied, not quilted so there were lots of lumps and bumps from the batting. Luckily the embroidery had held up very well.

I took apart the 3 layers, tried to comb/ smooth out the smaller lumps and removed the big bumps that I couldn't get to flatten. I put in a very thin poly batting between the top and the original batting and then added a new back. I machine-quilted it and added a hanging sleeve. The mom (generation 2) embroidered a different prayer on a label which I hand-appliqued to the back.

The daughter (generation 3) received the refurbished quilt in Christmas 2020 and promptly asked if her cotton thermal blanket was also in the middle. It had not been included because mom hadn't been able to find it. Of course daughter runs up to her old room and digs it out of some hidden corner within a couple of minutes.

I was then contacted to rip out some of my quilting so I could then add the blanket and requilt it. I was worried because the original fabrics of the embroidered top were fragile and I was afraid that the fabrics would tear no matter how careful I was when taking out the stitching. However the customer is always right and I personally love the idea of all these layers representing different generations, so I was willing to take the risk. The mom (generation 2) made an additional label (to go with the prayer label) that lists the names of the 3 women and their respective birth years.

I love this story as I am also the third generation of first born women and my daughter is the 4th generation. In my family, all 4 of us have the same first name and my daughter thinks she wants to continue the tradition if she ever has a first-born who happens to be a girl. Crossing my fingers!!!