A LIVING DOLL

This retirement quilt was made for the best-dressed woman in town. It began as an idea for a paper doll that looked like her, with our favorite outfits in blocks around the doll. It ended up as a closet featuring things she wore to work and on stage. The night before it was presented to her, I got the crazy idea to make small lingerie and hang it over the dresser drawers, like she'd thrown it there. Since her goal was to be one of the most glamorous grandmas around, that was the perfect touch. With the scale of this quilt, large paper clips made great hangers for the clothes! One of the greatest benefits of making this quilt was getting to be friends with my collaborator, Tami, who was the best-dressed woman's assistant!

Library Books

One of our library secretary's duties was handling the book orders. When she retired, her quilt HAD to be books. She worked for seven different library directors during her 33 years on the job. I tracked them all down (with help from the reference and acquisitions departments!) so they could sign books for her quilt. Each book has a little cloth page inside, where friends can write a message. This design posed a challenge - she had been there 33 years, and I wanted to have 33 books. The large center block allowed for one last book leaving the other rows even.

A Gentleman and a Scholar

One friend didn't retire. He was so charming, he left and got a quilt anyway. His quilt featured one shirt for four facets of his life - educator, gentleman, friend and equestrian. It was fun picking four men's shirts from my stash, coordinating ties for each of them, and sewing on the ties' designer labels. When it was time to present the quilt, it was clipped to a beautiful wooden hanger with a clear plastic bag over it. I joked about bringing his dry cleaning.

The Original Lab Coat

When the biology instructor retired, she gave me a lab coat from her students. I cut out the embroidered parts and used the fabric to construct a tiny lab coat. Her uniform was a blue shirt and khaki pants, so those fabrics made up her quilt.

Tiny Lab Coat

When the lab manager retired, her quilt featured a tiny lab coat, framed with denim since she always wore jeans, and orange sashing to match her super cool orange shoes. The denim is actually cut from jeans - can you see the seam in the center? This was another really easy quilt to do. The hardest part was constructing the lab coat. If you make doll clothes, you're ahead of the game!

Quilt for a Beatles Fan

This former co-worker donated a bag of his ties to the quilt cause. When he decided to retire I used his tie to make this quilt. His comment? "If I'd known it would end up in my quilt, I'd have given you better ties." He gave me several Beatles ties. The Yellow Submarine had the best colors! I appliqued it to the taupe fabric base, then used the remaining tie to form the knot (stuffed with fiberfill) and even had enough left over for the binding! After one row of quilting around the tie, I knew it would look great with waves of the same quilting radiating out around it. This was a really quick quilt to do! He absolutely loved it. So did I.

ABOUT TIME

A friend created this blog for me over two years ago. Life got in the way. It's time to get off my duff and let you see some of the quilts made for friends! Hope you enjoy them.