The quilt so far

-- Post From My iPhone

So much mail

Seriously, people... I need to get a bgger mailbox for my poor parents. They're getting bombarded with packages! I'm so grateful that they've been kind enough to accept my mail. I figured things were less likely to get lost/stolen from their mail slot that my open front porch...


Anyway, on to the squares themselves. This week I got squares from home and from afar, hand-delivered and through air mail, small packages and large... You get the picture. Let's start with the local fare:





Jodie Faster gave this to me at tryouts this weekend. It's a piece of her Wicked Pissah sweatshirt from her days as a kick-ass jammer. This year she retired from skating and joined our Ref team instead, and she felt that this piece of her BDD experience would be a good fit for the quilt.





Etta Maims also gave this to me at tryouts, so I guess it was a Pissah-studded evening. Hers is a piece of a Pissah shirt with some fabulous bedazzled details. So sparkly, so very Maims.




Bazooka Joe sent this lovely collection of patches from Pioneer Valley Roller Derby. This mixed women's and men's league rocks the army green like nobody's business. I had uniform envy when I saw them bout this summer. I love the look of this square, and I loved the stickers and pins included in the package too. :D




Anne Persand sent me this lovely square from PVRD as well. Now their ref team is represented too! I love the color scheme and lettering. Those Pioneer Vally peeps have style.... I'm dying to go visit them to get to know more of these local people who have been so kind as to indulge my quilting obsession.





This square made it's way up from Syracuse, NY thanks to the lovely Princess Impaler. I'm in love with the red fishnets on denim. New York is really stepping up - first Queen City, now Assault City. Maybe Gotham will be next? :D

Last, but by no means least, is the"holy crap!" moment of the week. Jodie Faster came up to me at Ruby Khan's Halloween party and handed me an envelope. "You got an interesting package from England. This came to the league's P.O. Box this week." Confused, I took a small, soft package from her and opened it up to reveal a surprise quilt square from abroad.



All the way from England, it's the quilt's first square from outside of the US. They found me without even knowing my mailing address. How's that for dedication? Thanks Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames! I was over the moon when I got this square. I'm thrilled to receive derby love from so far away.

That's it for this weekend. I've been told I have more packages on the way from other far away places, so more on that when the mail-dude arrives. Phew. My thumbs need a break from all this iPhone blogging. I'll try to post a shot of the whole quilt when I get home. It can finally cover my bed now...

-- Post From My iPhone

Four more squares!

Hooray! This weekend I got married (well... In a public ceremony as opposed to the private one this summer) and I got four surprise wedding gifts:



This square was given to me in person by a member of my wedding party. Xena ParadoX (you know, like Zeno's Paradox) made this to represent the infinite number of half-distances a jammer has to cross before passing her.





She also gave me this, passed on through her from the fabulous Dee Claw.

When I got back from the reception (which was a Halloween-themed costume party at a roller rink) my mom gave me a package from the Queen City Roller Girls of Buffalo, NY. How amazing is this embroidery?






What a bad-ass weekend. Marriage, love, costumes, skating, fun, friendship, and quilt squares. Oh, and cake. Lots of cake.

-- Post From My iPhone

New contributions!

Thank you Wender Bender! These fabulous squares represent her league, her team, herself, and Roller Durance. Way to generate quilt squares, lady!

I have mail!

Apparently a package addressed to "Dreadnought" is sitting on the kitchen table. This will be the longest parent teacher night ever...


-- Post From My iPhone

New Squares!

I got some new squares over the past few months. Here is a belated update:

Maude Forbid screen printed a Boston B Party shirt to represent our B Team:

EZ Bake Shovin' retired this year, but she donated a square because she's just that fabulous:

This is a square-in-progress made up entirely of used track tape from one of our summer bouts:

Death by Roxy sent this from Vermont. It's made up entirely of used skate laces. Brilliant idea:

This is a uniform piece by the lovely ladies of NHRD:

And finally, a shot of the quilt as it is right now in its safety-pinned-together state:

I may have created a monster.

How have things been going in quilt-land, you ask? Since my decision to base my MSAE thesis project on roller derby has been approved, it's been going almost freakishly well. The panel that reviewed my benchmark presentation was pretty gung-ho about the quilt, and I've been given the go-ahead to go bat-shit crazy with this until my thesis show next year. Ever since last week it's been a quilt-o-rama at the Dread household, and then I got the crazy idea to email everyone I could possibly think of who's life has been touched by roller derby.

I spent the better part of three hours on Monday emailing every single league on the western half of the US in the hopes of getting a few more squares for the quilt. Over the past three days I have received over a hundred responses. Many are "I'll post this to my league and hopefully someone will contact you", which is simply fabulous. However, quite a few have been significantly more awesome. Thanks to everyone who has responded, but special thanks go to these three anonymous leagues:

"... can I have your mailing address and I'll send it out this week!!!"

"Oh, you're so lucky the crafter on our league also maintains the MySpace!"

"I can easilly put together a few squares to send off for you to add, but what I would really like to do is contribute a whole panel..."

I've simply taken to squealing every time I hear the little "ping" of my inbox getting another email. Tonight I'll hit the eastern half of the country, and I'll use this weekend to work on contacting international leagues. In my fantasy world, every state and every country will be represented on the quilt. That might be too much to ask, but a girl can dream...