Blazers superfan never letting go of her knitted Lillard sweater
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Gina Shaddox is a self-proclaimed "Blazers superfan." But she won't be donating or burning her Damian Lillard memorabilia if the 7-time All-Star does leave Portland.
And don't even bring it up.
"Unless Damian Lillard himself wants this, I'm never parting with it." Shaddox said. "Every time he's ever in Moda Center, I will be wearing it proudly."
Despite the off-season reports of Lillard requesting a trade, Gina's love for Lillard hasn't changed. Not in the least.
The 2022-23 Trail Blazers season had its ups and downs. But early on in the year, when the team wasn’t dealing with as many injuries, Gina combined two of her passions -- the Blazers and knitting. And it was a beautiful thing.
Gina wore her Damian Lillard sweater -- one she knitted with Dame's face across the entire front of the sweater -- to Moda Center in December.
Yes, it’s her favorite signature sweater. Look at the detail this picture shows:
Fans asked her if they could buy the sweater off of her for $500. But no amount of money would have Gina part ways with her Lillard sweater.
“I put so much time into it. I mean, it’s my baby. It’s the one that I’ll never part with," she said. "People have offered to buy it off of me and I just can’t. It’s just, it’s not looking as sharp as it was at one point. I’ll still lovingly fold this up and put it in the closet and keep it forever.”
As you might imagine, it was quite the process to knit Lillard’s face line by line. Gina had to start over from the beginning multiple times.
"It was a long process. It was probably about four months from start to finish," Gina explained. "I found a picture I liked. I manipulated it in Photoshop. That took a couple of weeks. Picking the color palette, trying to find the yarn... I knitted, I un-knitted, I knitted, I un-knitted."
The inspiration for the sweater came from other creative Blazers fans.
“I work very part-time, game nights for the Trail Blazers. If you’ve bought a 50/50 raffle ticket, you might’ve bought it from me,” Gina said with a smile. “I see all these amazing fan-made sweatshirts, t-shirts. People make handmade signs and I thought, I don’t have a lot of artistic drawing skills, but what I can do is knit a sweater.”
Four months later, the Dame-face sweater graced Moda Center and our social media timelines.
But the longtime Blazers fan really owes the greatness of the Dame-Face sweater to plenty of sweat and tears.
And to her grandmother.
“I learned to knit from my great-grandma. I don’t think I was in kindergarten yet… It was obviously just squares back and forth. I didn’t really pick it up until my son was born. So 22 years ago, maybe, I really got into it. But when my son was born and I was off work for a little while and he was a baby, I started picking up a little bit again, and I went to design school, I started to really pick it up more and more then and it just has kind of escalated from there.”
From knitting squares to knitting Lillard Time sweaters, Shaddox is looking to expand her sports sweater collection.
So far, Gina has knitted the "Dame-Face" sweater, “The Dillon the Pickle” sweater, a “Portland Trail Blazers” sweater, and the infamous “You’ve got to make your free throws” sweater (a favorite phrase of the late Blazers announcer Bill Schonely).
The Blazers logo sweater was the “test run” of sports sweaters for Gina. And now, maybe a sweater of Scoot Henderson is in on the docket.
Check out the video above for more on Gina and check out her Instagram at ginamarina_makes_stuff.
"There will be more sweaters. There will be more be more non-sweater related projects in the works, too," Shaddox said with a smile. "Wearable Blazers art."
But as a fan of Lillard from the day he was drafted No. 6 overall by Portland in 2012, Gina wants Dame to know that no matter what she will always be grateful for Lillard Time.
"Always Team Dame, first."