My daughter's school has "deans" who guide students through their high school experience toward the goal of college. Our dean, Mrs. Doran was, in my opinion, the best dean in the school. She guided my daughter to take certain courses to make her marketable to the universities and programs that she wanted to attend. In the end, my daughter got into her first choice university and a few others to boot. Mrs. Doran decided to go out on her own and leave the school at the end of this school year. I was (my whole family was) so grateful for her guidance and so glad she was there throughout our daughters high school years that I wanted to create a lasting memory for her. I got one of my "brilliant ideas" to make her a quilt. I asked all seniors to come up with one word to comes to mind when they think of Mrs. Doran. My plan was to have those words quilted into the quilt. Of course, true to my nature, this brilliant idea came to me just weeks before graduation. I quickly decided on the fabric - I used bright colors and white in alternating strips - the words to be quilted in the white strips in a coordinating thread color. I fervently sewed the strip quilt, and added the border. The hardest part was getting the students to come up with the words. The school does not provide email lists of students to parents, and I was not about to type in each students email address from the directory, so I came to a senior breakfast, notebook in hand and gathered words. There were plenty of words repeated by numerous students, but in the end, I had enough words to create a quilt. I hired a professional quilter, Jane Plisga, thinking she would use a quilting machine and rapidly write out the words. She instead, used her sewing machine to quilt the words. Absolutely amazing! She even backed and bound the quilt for me. The final result Is below. Mrs. Doran cried when it was presented.
