The T-Shirt Quilt Has Been Gifted

A quickie post for you today, dear readers. Over the weekend, I received these pictures of a recent MHS grad who now has a brand new quilt to take to his college dorm this fall.

I am so happy to get pictures like this. To know that the customer is happy with the quilt gives me all the warm-fuzzy feels. This is a whopper, can you tell? His mother brought me shirts in near-pristine condition, and I used some backs of shirts in the borders, so there was quite a lot of work in it. Because 25 shirts make a really big quilt, I used very narrow sashing, and as I revisit it in these photos, I am really pleased with the result.

I don't have any further commission quilts on the horizon, and I'm okay with that. I have so many irons in the fire at present with my own quilts and the long arm, I would be crazy to take on more.

To see some of my posts on the making of this t-shirt quilt, click here and here.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Winding Down a Year and a Decade

All over the social medias I am seeing posts about not only the end of 2019, but also of the twenty-teens decade. Whoa. That's giving me lots to reflect on. It had never occurred to me that come midnight tomorrow, we begin a new decade. This will be the 7th decade I have lived in, which sounds like a lot, but I only had three years in my first decade. That means, though, that this decade will see me turning 70! Yikes!

Okay, I am not here today to talk about aging and the passage of time. I come here to talk about quilts, by gosh, and I have one more finish to share before concluding this year.

A long while back, our sweet young friend Caleb handed off a bagful of t-shirts and asked if I would make them into a quilt. We love this boy - he's almost one of our own! - so of course, I was all in.

I made the quilt top back in May, and quilted it in November, and included it here in my November round-up. It was my 2nd quilt completed on the Tin Lizzie.

Finally, yesterday I did the binding. With all the Christmas madness, I just hadn't taken the time to get this final task completed. It was taking up space in my quilting room, however, so it needed to be dealt with.

The back is pieced. I thought I'd bought enough of the black and gold paisley, however, I was not able to stretch it enough to make it work. My solution was to grab the gray and black stripe - it sorta' reminds me of barbed wire - that I used in the cornerstones, for a midsection of the back. Worked like a dream!

And now it is ready to be handed off to Caleb. I think he will love it. That was the last of four t-shirt quilts I made for others this year, and now all are finished.

Remember all those t-shirt quilts??

Number 1 was the Ohio State Quilt I made for my husband's college fraternity alumni to raffle for scholarship money. We just drew the winner on that - one of the alumni won it. Interestingly, his son was a senior on the OSU football team this year. We will be sending it out today or tomorrow.

Numbers 2 and 3 were quilts made for a local friend who gave them as Christmas gifts to her son.

And this one - Caleb's quilt - makes 4. I'm sure we will be seeing him soon.

And now, back to that end of the year/decade business. With just 1 1/2 days to go, I have one more quilt top I'd like to polish off. The quilt-along I worked on through the Quilter's Planner is right on schedule. The December instructions called for completing the quilt top, and I have nearly done it. Only a border to add, so my intention is to go to work on that this afternoon. Easy-peasy. Below is the first block done back in January.

I hope you are finishing your year - and your decade - strong!!
Happy Quilting, Friends!

Two Quilts for One Customer

I hate to think about how long I have had Beth's t-shirts. I suppose I picked them up from her as far back as February or March. I devoted the month of May to making the quilt tops; I wrote about the big one in this post, and the smaller one in this post.

I will show you the finishes before I go into the long tale of at last finishing these quilts.

It is obvious seeing them folded together that one is much smaller than the other. She had saved a lot of her son's shirts! Several were from when her son was a very little boy. Those shirts ended up being cut at 12" square and went into the smaller, lap-size quilt. The bigger shirts were all cut at 15" and made a big 88" square quilt.

Like I said, the tops were made in May. Then the wait was on. I could have taken them to my friend Terry for quilting, but that longarm hanging out right here in my own house needed to be used. It had been dormant for far too long.

It hadn't been without some trying, though, however half-hearted it was. At some point, I made a quilt 'sandwich' out of some old fabric and did try to get things going, but whenever I hit a snag, I would just stop. I was easily deterred. When the time crunch began to set in - Beth wanted these quilts for Christmas - I finally got serious about making this situation right.

With the help of DH, we moved furniture out of a whole upstairs bedroom, dismantled the longarm - which was in the basement, mind you - and moved it to that empty bedroom. Oh, remember, we painted and steam-vacced before moving the longarm, too. So, when all was set up and ready to go, I had terrible-looking stitches. The fix ended up requiring two trips to my favorite Tin Lizzie repairman over in McArthur. He diagnosed me, then fixed me, and at long, long last, I quilted my first quilt on a machine I'd had for two years!

I've blogged a few times about this whole process, so all that is a very condensed version of the entire saga. Click here for the more complete story.

Later today I am delivering the quilts to Beth. In time for Christmas! Yes! Deadline met with barely any time to spare. They have some flaws, but I think they are minimal. Quilters can be overly critical of their own work, and t-shirt quilts are not meant to be heirlooms, so these will be good for actually using and enjoying.

I cannot tell you how happy I am to finally be quilting and getting projects done all on my own. It's a monumental development in my evolution as a quilter.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Making T-Shirt Quilts

My summer began with 4 commissions to make. The first to be checked off the list was the baby quilt for young mom Molly and her little Ella. Next, was the beast, aka Elisa's king-size original.

Now I am at work trying to finish up the remaining two - both t-shirt quilts. While I normally would work on one to finish, and then begin the other, since they are the same design with the same construction steps, I am working assembly-line style. Below are stacks of cut shirts.

1. Cut out shirt fronts - and sometimes backs, too - at 15" square.
2. Cut 15" squares from lightweight fusible interfacing.
3. Iron interfacing to backs of shirt squares.
4. Layout shirts in pleasingly random fashion, distributing color evenly.
5. Determine the color of the fabric to use for sashing, borders and backing.
6. Shop for sashing, borders and backing fabric.

And that is where today's post comes into play. I contacted the clients for each quilt to see if a particular color was important and/or desired. This varies widely with every single person, so I never presume to press my preferences on them. Generally, people go with a favorite color, or a school color, or a particular "look." This has never resulted in an ugly quilt, in my opinion, so as far as t-shirts go, anything works.

One customer requested green, and sent two color swatches to show me the right shading. The varieties in this picture were all I could find in the correct range, and these had enough yardage for the purpose at hand. We ended up selecting the next-to-last fabric in this grouping.

For this green quilt, I have cut the sashing strips and have sewn the horizontal rows; I have a start on attaching the rows, too. I could have the top center finished in short order. It will be ready for the quilter very, very soon.

The other customer requested orange for the sashing, borders and backing. Even being October, I had a hard time finding a lot of variety in orange. (Maybe because it's October, the selection was limited.) I don't know. Anyway. I bought the two fabrics above. Neither had the yardage needed for the whole job, but I thought I could use the mosaic-looking piece for the sashing and borders, and use the little print for the backing. That is my current plan anyway.

This second quilt will be much larger than the first. One will have 16 blocks (set 4x4); the other will have 25 blocks (set 5x5). This difference doesn't seem like it would be that significant, but it is. My sashing strips are 2" (finish at 1.5") for the green quilt. I have not yet cut the strips for the orange - and I may go narrower simply to keep the size manageable.

The remaining steps for the list I began above are:
7. Cut sashing strips and attach forming rows.
8. Attach long sashing strips between rows and create the quilt center.
9. Measure, cut and attach borders.
10. Prep backing.
11. Take top, batting and backing to quilter.
12. When quilted, cut and attach binding.
13. Deliver finished quilt to client.

In news on other projects, I have quilted on Erin's Diamonds for a total of about 4 hours. It seems to have barely made a dent, so I need to pick up the pace.

I have enjoyed quilting this, and even though I have a whole lotta' quilting ahead of me, it will be fun to see it finishing so prettily.

The sewing room straightening and sorting continues. DH's painting continues. We have our DD1's cat Rocky here for a week's stay. And our DS Adam is home for a few weeks from his job in Oregon! We were expecting his return, but this early arrival surprised us just a bit.

With all of this going on, maintaining my focus on cleaning and quilting is sometimes harder than you think! *wink*

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Welcome, October

Some years I am just fine with the changing of the seasons, and I look forward to different Ohio weather. For some reason this year, I am rather ambivalent about leaving summer behind and moving into fall. Maybe it's because I have had such a fantastic summer, with a wedding, a big fraternity party, and 2 beach vacations. So, even though I love the cooler weather, and the chance to wear jeans and sweaters and socks and shoes (as opposed to sandals which I've had on every day since mid-April!), I just hate waving bye-bye to all that sunny, carefree fun.

Get a grip, Jayne!

Enough! I will welcome fall. I have already pulled out my meager few fall decorations and placed them around the house. I have dug out my favorite pumpkin coffee cake recipe, and look forward to making it this weekend. I am full-throttle into football season, as I watch the Buckeyes and Browns try to make successes out of their off-season headlines (Braxton Miller's injury for the Bucks; Johnny Football mania for the Browns).

Well, let's quit with the whining and opining, and get to some quilting news, shall we? Before Hilton Head, you may recall, I took the t-shirt quilt I'd been working on to Terry for quilting. On Monday evening I picked it up and spent Tuesday (yesterday) binding it. I finished it, and it is ready to be delivered to the customer. She has seen a picture of the finish and is quite pleased, I am happy to report. Have a look for yourself.

This t-shirt quilt is the 5th or 6th I have made, and I am becoming more and more fond of doing them. I am happy that people contact me to ask about making one for them. T-shirts represent memories and go back years and years, in many cases. The events in our lives that are represented by those t-shirts come back to us just the same way as memories do when we look at photo albums or yearbooks. I think that is why they are so popular. They are a tangible and useful memory of happy days gone by. But here's the catch - because they are made of t-shirts, there's little need to worry about using the quilt. Go ahead and take it on a picnic, or to a football game! It can take the abuse!

T-shirt quilts are perfect for those who love to recycle and reuse. This is a great alternative to shipping old shirts off to Goodwill or a clothing bank, or using them as rags in the workshop or garage. Give them new life in a quilt that will be cuddled and loved and used and appreciated for many years to come. It's gratifying to see customers who are pleased with their decision to do this.

Now, they do cost, have no doubt about that! I don't do them for free, and I try to make it clear before starting that my time is valuable. So far, I've not had anyone who has objected to paying the price I quote for making a quilt. Thankfully. It is a one-of-a-kind memento, after all. Even if it is made of old t-shirts, the time they take to make - and make well, I might add - has to be considered.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Bartering

I went over to Terry's on Thursday for a couple of hours to help her get started on a t-shirt quilt. She'd never made one before, and since I've made several, she thought I could coach her through the process.

If you've never made a t-shirt quilt, it is absolutely the easiest, fastest quilt in the world to make. The blocks are big and because it's made of t-shirts, it's generally not going to be an heirloom or anything, so being super exact about everything is optional. (YAY!)

My tried-and-true method requires using a 15" square ruler to cut the front design out of a t-shirt. These would be adult-size shirts with big designs on the front or back. (The picture above is from a previous t-shirt project.) Naturally, for children's shirts or for shirts that have smaller designs, a smaller ruler would be necessary. All of Terry's t-shirts had smaller insignias on the upper left chest of the shirt, so we used an 8" square ruler for her blocks. She will end up with more of a lap quilt than a bed-size quilt. She had 12 shirts in all.

There will be a lot of waste with what is discarded after each shirt is cut. I've seen some really cute things on Pinterest that use t-shirt knit, so the fabric could be repurposed. The knit also recycles nicely as car rags, camping rags, pet rags, etc. - they sky's the limit on uses.

Here is the waste from 12 adult-sized shirts.

Next, cut the fusible lightweight interfacing - the same size as the block. This then is ironed on to the back of each t-shirt block to stabilize it and prevent the stretching and curling that working with knit would naturally have.

These blocks have the interfacing ironed onto the back.

Next, cut the sashing strips. No rules to follow - they can be any width you want! On my Ohio State quilt, I cut 3 1/2" strips to finish out at 3" sashings. Cut as many as you need to do the sides of each block, then sew the rows together.

For the long sashing pieces, I would measure the length of each of my rows, establish an average, and cut them to that length. Another alternative is to do the math: add up the totals of the blocks and sashing strips. It would all come out pretty much the same (ideally). Cut as many strips as you need to this length. 

Then construct the top by sewing long sashing strips to rows, until you have your top. Add borders to your desire, and VOILA!! Your t-shirt quilt top is done! Easy-peasy, right?

So, you may be wondering, why is the title of this post Bartering? What's the connection? Well, Terry did the quilting on my Ohio State t-shirt quilt. Instead of paying her, she wanted me to give her lessons on how to make one! How sweet is that? In just a couple of hours, I paid off my debt, had a wonderful visit with a dear friend, all the while doing something that I love!

Have you every bartered with someone - exchanging one service for another? I think it's pretty cool!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

I Fixed My Goof

Back awhile, on a day when Sharon was coming over to sew, I'd planned to work on the OSU t-shirt quilt. I cut out the t-shirts, then the interfacing, and proceeded with ironing on. Ehh, well, what do you know?? I bought and cut out non-fusible interfacing! There was no way it was ever going to "iron on." Dang! This frustrates me so - when I have a project ready to go and a stupid mistake prevents my making any progress on it.

And, to make matters worse, I bought about 20 yards of the non-fusible interfacing. I'd found a great sale, and since I had a couple of t-shirt quilts lined up, I figured I'd use it.

So what to do?? I had mountains of this stuff that I just hated to see go to waste!

Give me enough time, and I can often come up with an idea, you know??

Spray adhesive!

Last week, when I went to Kay's to work on the t-shirt quilt, I took both interfacings; she had some spray adhesive so I tried it and it worked!!! So, I will be able to use up the non-fusible that I have after all! Hurray!

Here is a quilt that Kay is doing for a friend who is a cancer survivor.

Twelve shirts - 12 years of survivorship!

Our friend and former colleague, Nancy, a non-quilter, was learning to make t-shirt quilts. Having 3 kids who were extremely active when in high school, she has plenty of t-shirts at her disposal.

Later today, I am meeting Kay and we are going to a quilt show in Circleville sponsored by the guild from up there - The Good Time Quilters. Pics forthcoming!

Happy Quilting, Friends!