Wake Up, Harley

A couple posts ago, I talked about black and gold fabrics.  My cousin is a Harley Davidson bike rider and he asked me to make a t-shirt quilt for his daughter, Mary.  Mary is a recent graduate of Wake Forest University... hence, the black and gold fabrics.

The t-shirts had logos and designs of various sizes.  Some of them were 16" which is a little oversized for a t-shirt quilt.  Most t-shirt squares are cut at 12" and the logos are just chopped off... not to my liking for a special quilt like this one had to be.  Some of the logos were small which would have left a lot of negative space on the block if they were cut at 12".

So, it became a very custom quilt.  The t-shirt blocks were various sizes filled in with traditional quilt blocks in black and gold.  I used blocks like flying geese, square in square, pinwheels, etc.  I thought they would add a nice touch since the quilt was for a girl, yet the t-shirts and colors were somewhat masculine.  The traditional blocks finished at 5" square (except the geese) and I used sashing to make the rows even.

Here's the result...

The driver for preserving the 16" block is the middle block which says...

           What makes a road "Sweet"?
           What makes a journey "Epic"?
           It starts with that ribbon of pavement  calling your name.  

As Mary is at the beginning of her life's journey having just graduated from college, I thought it was so profound.  She will have roads in her life calling her name and whether the journey is sweet or epic is all about the decisions she will make.

Oh, Wake up, Harley is the name of the quilt... Wake Forest + Harley Davidson.  Get it?