Goodness it's February already!

Well not only is it February, but February will be gone before we know it!  It's been another eventful week here and not just with quilting, even though there was some of that also.  I've been working on a quilt that I am doing for a lady in Rome.  Actually I thought I would be finished with it by now, but alas, it hasn't happened.  I decided to try something new, as in a new pattern, or maybe I need to rephrase that.  I purchased a video from a lady who does absolutely beautiful quilting, Lisa Calle.  This particular video is about how to decide what you are going to quilt on a quilt and how to design your quilting layout.  I really have felt that I was getting into a rut and wanted to do some new things.  I really don't want to do the same thing over and over on everyones quilts.  Quilts are so individual that I think they each need something that sets them apart from the crowd.  I've actually even signed up for a class coming up in March to learn some new techniques.

Well I digress..........Anyway I got this wonderful video and the instructor is showing how she comes up with some of her ideals and some of the things she uses and I was getting ready to put a new quilt on the machine so I though, well I'm going to try this.  Now that is when the problems started.  I have like never taken this long to get a quilt done (when I was working on it like I have this one).  But first I wanted to follow her directions and divide the quilt.  She says that your quilting will not show up as well unless there are dividing lines.  Well I had this really great ideal to do arcs on this quilt,  I got my design all ready and got my quilt on the machine and I was ready to start this.......Well, not quite, I soon discovered out of all the rulers I have I did not have the one I need to do the arcs because the blocks in this quilt are 18" blocks.  My arc rulers are 12" at the largest.  So then I decided to do straight lines.  Well this is much more difficult than arcs because they will all need to rise the same amount in the center or this will not look good.  I then had a lot of measuring to do.  Now I didn't have to make a lot of long marks, just dots, but the dots had to be in the right place or else I would not have a consistent pattern.  I really don't think that would have looked well at all!  So I had to measure and make marks.

She said to be sure and start in the center of the quilt, so I did. This really involves a lot of moving the quilt back and forth on the rollers. It's not at all like you just pin the quilt on and start on one side and work your way to the other. A lot more time consuming. In addition to that, I know that if I don't keep my work area fairly close to me then I wind up with a bad back ache and I hate to do that to myself, which means even more frequent rolling!

This is a picture of some of the marks that I had to make.

 

As you can see in the picture the marks are very small.  There are 30 blocks in this quilt and I had to measure to the center of each block and then I wanted the channel to travel from the corner up to  1 1/2" at the peak and then back down to the corner.  I wanted the channel to be about 1/4" wide which involved a real learning curve and I had to start marking the other 1/4" mark on the quilt to so the channels would be partially straight!  Wow, who knew this would wind up being this much work!

I wanted to put feathers in the blank space between the channels and between the border and the channel, I think this turned our really well.  Of course you can see in the first picture the feathers where they cross the block seams between the blocks.  This quilt has no sashing.  Still I'm liking the way this looks.

 

 

Now I'm really happy with the way this part is turning out.  I think the lady will be pleased when I get this finished, but as I said, a lot of work and a lot of measuring!  Now I started at the center and worked out to one side.  The video also said to go ahead and either pin baste your quilt if you had large areas between the channels.  Well I did have large spaces between the channels but instead of pin basting which I really am not a fan of doing anyway, I decided to go ahead and sew around the applique in the blocks.  The next step was suppose to be go around applique and specific blocks so I just decided to go ahead with that as my next step.

 

I decided that I wanted to go ahead and do the detail work on the appliqued pieces at the same time I was doing the outline work.

 

I really do like the way this is turning out also.  But another problem.  This is applique, and even though I spent extra time when I was putting the quilt on the machine to make sure all of the embroidery thread had the tails tucked under the applique, some of them sneaked out!  Drat and Darn!!, Double Darn even!!  I have to take a pin and work my way under the applique and pick the thread back down so it will be in under the appliqued piece or else the quilt looks like it has vericose veins!  There are some places that can not be done, since she just skipped over from one piece to the next and did not cut and tie the thread.  Oh well, nothing I can do about that.

 

Well yes I know I should have posted this first.  This is just a picture of the quilt before I started my quilting.

 

 

 

I have decided that I will do a small meandering pattern around the inside of the tulip blocks and I have an ideal for the border that I think will be nice and fairly easy to do.  First I need to finish the center of the quilt though and I'm just about half way through with that portion.  Next week is another week.

 

In addition to working on this quilt I've also managed to get the borders sewn on a quilt for the guild that is in line to be quilted.  Sorry I know it will not be ready for the next guild meeting.  No hope for that I don't think!  I've also been working on a t-shirt quilt being made out of a young lady's cheerleading uniforms, t-shirts, lots of bows and a couple of pictures and some ensignias from her high school.  Got the shirts all cut out and fused to the interfacing and trimmed to size.

 

I have two quilts that need to be repaired that are waiting for me in addition to another quilt waiting to go on the machine for a customer (it goes on next).  On top of all that I just picked up the t-shirts for another quilt for a customer.  So far I've done quilts for all of her boys as they graduated and got ready to go to college and she told me when the last boy graduated that she had some neices and nephews that she wanted to get quilts for so she brought the tees for one last week.

 

In addition to all of that I started taking a class at the senior center and we are going to be making a mystery quilt.  I really will have to work hard to keep up with this.  Sometimes I have a tendency to let those projects fall by the wayside and that is why I have so very many UFO's which is something I want to try to finish some of this year.

 

I hope everyone has had a wonderful week.  Happy quilting!





It's catch up time!

Well the last time I posted I was telling you all about a beautiful quilt that I had quilted for my friend Pat.  Well here are the pictures I promised!

 

This is a picture of the quilt after I had quilted it.  Beautiful and when I saw it I thought that must be a Fonz and Porter pattern.  So I just had to ask and believe it or not I was right.  Here are some of the pictures of individual blocks also.

 

I love this star block.  Really simple but so awesome looking!

 

Pat did a great job on this Eagle block.

The colors of the fabric is one of the things that makes this quilt so very beautiful.

Great job Pat!

Now this is a small item and I didn't ask if she was going to use this for a pillow top or what exactly she had planned.  Maybe a small table topper? 

In addition to working on Pat's quilt last week I spent a lot of time working on this memory quilt for Savannah.  These shirts belonged to her Dad who was a avid hunter and fisherman.  Some of the shirts were so worn they had holes in them and I had to put a piece of fabric behind the print and then put the non-woven interfacing on that.  This picture shows the pieces of the shirts just cut out and laid out on the bed to see how the pattern was working.  Actually took me and Peggy the better part of a morning just to cut the logos from the shirts.

This patch is from a gimme cap and I just cut out the Logo and then I zigzag it down on the top of the quilt top before quilting.

This is one of the cap patchs after being sewn down to the top of the quilt.  The stripp8ng between the blocks, in case you were wondering is some of his cotton shirts that she brought.

 

 

So this is part of my catching up and showing you some pictures of a couple of the things I have been working on.  I hope you all enjoy the pictures!  Have a great quilty day!

More T-Shirt Quilts

Well I have been at the T-shirts again gals.  I just wanted to go through some of the process I go through for making these wonderful quilts that are so very full of memories, but first just wanted to share a little cartoon!  Some people will make quilts out of anything!

I am one of those people I guess.  I frequently repurpose items in my house to use them for other things.  This particular cartoon reminds me of a lady where I used to work.  She took their old socks that had the elastic stretched out of the top.  You know the kind that won't stay up.....  She would take the scissors and cut them from the top to the toe so they were flatter and then used them for dishrags.  They actually made very nice dishrags.  Now they didn't look great, but they sure did feel good because they were thick enough and soft enough to have a really nice feel when you were washing dishes in hot soapy water.  Of course today almost everyone has a dishwasher so they don't even know about the feel of a good dishrag.  Oh well, times change and we must go with the flow or be left behind!

I attempted to make a pictorial journal of the t-shirt quilt so I'm going to go ahead and post the pictures and put in the captions then I'll let you know at the end what I forgot to do!

The very first step of course is "harvesting" the portion of the tee shirt that you want to use.  Typically the logo.  Some shirts will have a logo on the front, some of the back, some on the sleeve and some will have them all 3 places and some will just have a small one on a front pocket!  When I start cutting the shirts I typically want to cut up the side seam and down the sleeve seam and you can do this on both sides to make the shirt lay flat on your cutting board.  I want to have some extra fabric along with the logo so I can "square up" the logo so I always make sure I have as wide an allowance as possible to allow me freedom in sizing and squaring.  If I can cut a 4" border around the logo that's okay.  Another thing I like to do is make sure that I cut all of the tee shirt pieces on even numbers.  The square I have cut may be 4" x 10" or 12" x 8".  They will not be 4 1/2" x 10 1/4".  They are doable like that, but it sure it a lot more headache trying to figure out the measurements!

Step 2 is to lay out the logos in the way you think you will use them on the quilt.  I typically do the layout on my bed and then will snap a few pictures after I am satisfied with the placement so I don't forget what I had in mind.

This picture is a little hard to see because I am standing to the side but this is how I lay out my harvested squares to get some ideal of how the final quilt will look.

 

 

Step 3 is measure and measure and measure!  How wide do you want the finished product?  Do you plan to put the pieces together in strips across the width of the quilt or top to bottom of the quilt?  If you are doing strips running from the top to the bottom then you want the logos you have cut out to be near the same width.  It is not likely they will be the same width exactly so you must plan to add a little fabric to some of the sides to get them all the same width but that addition is a few steps away.

Step 4 is apply the nonwoven interfacing to the back of the tee shirt material!  This will prevent stretching while you are trying to sew the fabric.  As you can see from this picture I try to use every speck of my interfacing and will line up the logos as accurately as possible.  On this piece which I cut next to the selvedge you can just see the selvedge above the logo.  This will be trimmed again for the final block!

 

Step 5 is once again squaring up the block.  I love using my Salem Rule for this that opens at a 45 degree angle making for perfect corners!

 



 

Step 6 is starting the process of making the quilt squares of a like size.  This particular shirt I added a strip up the right hand side fo the logo.  These strips will be of varying widths and when I am doing this I don't really want everything to line up exactly so I will swap around and the next shirt may have the strip on the opposite side.

 

Now as I said the next shirt has the strip on the opposite side and this strip had to be much larger for them to be the same width.

 

 

 

Now whether you are putting your strips together top to bottom or side to side you will need to know the finished size of the quilt you are wanting to make.  Once I have all the logos stripped up into the correct length or width (according to which way I am laying out the pattern), I need to add in the strips from one block to the next.  First I must add up all the lenght of each of the pieces in that strip.  Second I have to subtract that number from the length I want the quilt ( if I am making strips running from top to bottom).  So I have 5 logos in a strip.  1 is 16" 2 are 14" 1 is 10" and the other is 18".  This is length only and equals 72"  My finished quilt will be 96" and I want to use a finished 5" border around the outside, therefore my quilt needs to measure 86" finished and I have 72" unfinished so I need to add an extra 14" into the quilt in addition to the seam allowances. So my finished inner portion of the quilt will need to be 86 1/2" unfinished, so I will add this extra 1/2" to what I need.  14 1/2" and there will be a square, strip, square, strip, square, strip, square, strip, square.

 

5 squares and 4 strips and those 4 strips need to total 14 1/2".  So if I use 4" strips between 3 of the strips that will be 12" and then another strip at 2 1/2" that will give me my 14 1/2" in 4 strips.  That works!!!  Oh, lets add the seam allowances now to those strips so we don't mess up here.  Each seam will decrease the length by 1/2" if I am using 1/4" seams.  I will have seams at the top and bottom of each strip and there are 4 strips so I am talking about adding an extra 1" to the width of each strip.  The finished product will be a 5" finished border (cut 5 1/2" unfinished) a 15 1/2" finished square, a strip finished at 4" (cut at 4 1/2")  1 finished 13 1/2" finished square, a strip finished at 4", 2nd 13 1/2" finished square, a strip finished at 4",  a finished 9 1/2" square, a strip finished at 2 1/2" (cut at 3"), a finished 17 1/2" square and the bottom 5" finished border making a total of 94".

 

Use the same formula to figure you width measurements but for twin beds you will likely have on 3 strips of tee shirt lengths so you will have the 2 outer 5" finished borders and 2 strips inside the quilt making it border, tee-shirt strip, fabric strip, tee-shirt strip, fabric strip, tee-shirt strip and border.  For a regular size quilt you will perhaps have 4 tee-shirt length strips and 3 fabric strips plus borders and so forth for larger sized quilts.

 

The thing I failed to do was make a picture of the finished quilt before I delivered it and it now resides on the college bed of a student at Boston College!

 

This is actually the easiest way I have found of making the T-Shirt Quilts.  If you have a easier way I would certainly like to hear about it!  This was is easy enough for me that I can finish a top in about  7-9 hours depending on the size and then it is just quilting and binding.  What takes me the longest is actually the cutting the tee-shirts and getting the interfacing on them.  After that it is easy peesy! 

 

Best of luck to all of you who are going to try this.  If you run into any problems just let me know and maybe I'll be able to help you.  Happy quilting.

 

 

New Tees and things

Well, I've been at it again.  I love to make memory quilts with tees and people's clothes they wore and loved.  I just want to put a little more love in and then it goes to someone who will love it even more because of all the memories.  I typically get calls on the average of once a month asking for a memory quilt to be made and I really love doing them.  Unfortunately it takes me a while to get it all together.  I like to make them different, and use different techniques to make each one a unique work of art that will be cherished for many years to come.  I believe striving to make a very special item for each person is the reason I get so many calls for more.

Here is a quilt I made for a girl and the tee's belonged to her father.  She had many different tee's and all of these things demonstrate that her father loved his outdoor sports activities.  She also brought several shirts that he wore and I have used these to make the stripping between the blocks.  This is a little of the process I go through when making a memory quilt.

First I have to get the logos trimmed out and the fuseable
put on and then lay out the shirts.

This part is actually very time consuming.  Much more so than you may think.  I have to get the shirts laid out on my cutting table and I have to make sure I leave ample room around the outside of the logo for any trimming or squaring.  I also try to make a habit of cutting the logos out using a whole inch measurement.  Whether it's 6 or 14 doesn't matter but I don't want to do any 6 1/2 or 14 1/4.  That just confuses the issue when I start doing the stripping!  This is something I've learned the hard way over time.  After the logos are cut out I have to go the the ironing board to add the fuseable and I do use the woven most of the time.  This just seems to work better as far as I am concerned and there is less stretch.  Next I retrim the logos to remove rough edges,  and then I lay them out to see how it is going to look.




At this point I haven't done anything about the stripping.

Once I've laid the shirts out on the bed in the way I think I want them to go, taking into consideration the size and the colors then I can start thinking about the finish trimming.  This is where I have to make sure that all the shirts in a row are the same width.  If I can trim all the shirts in a row to a particular width, say 12" then I don't have to add any extra strips down the side.  If I can't then I will add a strip of shashing down one side to keep the sizes consistent. 


If you look at the bottom of this picture you will see where I have
added an extra strip of sashing to increase the width of that tee.

After doing the final trimming I can then add my sashing forming rows either vertically or horizonally to put the quilt top together.  Next I will put the finishing trims on the top.  In this case it is logos from hats that have been cut out and are satin stitched down before the quilting is done and then I do the quilting and binding being sure to add a rod pocket at the top because many of these quilts are hung.

These memory quilts are wonderful projects and I love doing them and seeing what new ideals I can come up with to make each quilt a very special one of a kind keepsake.

I hope you all have a great day and decide to one day try your hand at making a memory quilt as a keepsake to remember someone who has passed away, or to commemorate an event, like graduating from high school or college or getting married or having a baby.  Whatever the occasion these quilts are a lot of fun and guaranteed to make you stretch your brain to recall all of that math you had when you were in school!



T-Shirt Travels

Notice these tees have been aligned in long rows
(Quilt made by Kay for her daughter, Heather)

T-shirt quilts are wonderful things that hold personal memories galore.  They are loved and appreciated by all who receive them.  They are totally unique.  Usually they usually will evenutally wind up as a display item.  Many are made for young people as they graduate from high school and they get a quilt to take with them to college so it has to be the size of the college dorm bed, which is twin long in most colleges.  After college they will get tossed around some but as time moves on they will become a display piece, either in a bedroom, a guest room, or a home office or even a den or play room.  Now anyone can go online and find a multitude of places that make the quilts for a variety of prices, but being quilters, why should we pay for something we can do ourselves?  Obviously there is no reason if you can get some good instructions on how to accomplish your goal.  Me, I'm really an individual and like unique items, so I'm going for a really cool one of a kind quilt that no one else will have.  I've used many different views in creating some of these "masterpieces" and learned a lot along the way.  Here are some of my ideals and some of the things I've experienced in my t-shirt travels.

Cutting is important.  They must be cut using straight lines and the shirt should be laid out on the cutting board being careful not to stretch the fabric in any direction.  If the shirt has a print on only one side you are good to go, if you plan to use the prints from both sides then first you must carefully cut up both sides of the tee and right on around the bottom seam of the sleeve.  If there is an emblem on the sleeve you want to save then carefully cut around the seam in the sleeve leaving as much fabric as possible to be trimmed away.  I say this for a reason!!!  You want to be able to have pieces that are squares or rectangles.  While you can use triangles it is more difficult and you may not want to do this on your first t-shirt quilt.  After your shirt with the print is positioned on the cutting board, using a square up ruler of some type, cut out the design leaving, if at all possible 2-3" on all sides of the imprint.  This becomes very important later on in the process.  Many quilt makers will decide they are going to use 12 blocks that are 12 1/2" square with sashing between.  If that is your choice then cut your design out of your tee in a 14-15" square trying to center the logo or design as much as possible.  Others may want to make vertical or horizontal rows with sashing between the tees and between the rows.  If you have opted for that course then you will need to carefully watch the length or the width of the pieces you are cutting out.  If you have left some margin for error on your first cut then you will be okay.

After you have cut your tees up then you want to apply either a woven or nonwoven interface to the back to prevent stretching of the fabric as you sew or quilt.  I typically like the woven, iron-on the best for this step.  Be very careful here or you will wind up with some tees that the emblems are smeared or an iron that is no longer useable.  Use a pressing cloth.  Clean white and cheap fits the bill.  If you opt to lay the tee with the emblem facing down on your ironing board and try putting the interfacing on like that you will wind up with ink on your ironing board that will come off on everything you iron unless it wouldn't hurt that item and then miracle of miracles the ink won't transfer!!  I personally prefer to lay my interface with the beaded glue facing up on the ironing board and then lay the section of tee face up on the fusable, place my pressing cloth over that and press the tee only getting as close to the edge as possible without adhereing my pressing cloth to the fusable.    I then line up the next tee as close to the first as possible and sometimes even overlap about 1/4" to have no portion of the fusable uncovered.  I attempt to use as much of the width of the interfacing as possible moving and adjusting pieces to have the smallest amount left to trim away.  Again cover with pressing cloth and adhere to fusable. 

After I have all the tees with fusable I then start trimming.  I attempt to do rows either vertically or horizonally.  I will trim away as little of the excess as possible and start laying out the sizes.  I attempt to cut all widths on the even inch, like 13", 8", 10", 11" and the same with the lengths and then start putting my puzzle together.  If you have only 12 or 16 shirts to work with you are going to have a lot of space without logo's typically.  If you have a larger number of shirts then you will be able to use all the smaller logos to fill in gaps.  Maybe I have one tee with a logo that is 12" x 16" and I want to leave plenty for seams so it is cut at 15" x 20" and then I have a tee with a logo that is 10 1/2" x 3 " and a third tee with a logo  11" x 8".  I can use all of these logos in one row by placing the logo with 11" x 8" and leaving a little extra on each side of the logo to make up the difference or by sewing a strip of sashing and adding an extra 3" on one side.



With the shorter logos you can use 2 or 3 in the space of 1 longer logo.


Next I use the 12" x 16" logo with the extra inch on each side and next in that column would be the 10 1/2" x 3" logo that I have either cut to proper width or added sashing to maybe each side to make it 14" in width.  Now I have the 3 tees that are the proper width I can join them with sashing between and I frequently use different widths on my sashing.  Maybe I'll use 2" between the 1st shirt in the column and 1" between the 2nd and third shirts.  Maybe I have a couple of shirts with very small logos and then I may sew 2 side by side in order to get the width I need and I may even need to use a strip of sashing between them to get the proper width.



Kay did a great job of putting the small logos in the quilt.

I may even need to add a little sashing at the top or bottom of one of those logos.  Does this sound like a puzzle being pieced together?  That is really what it is like.  I really like to lay out all my shirts in a pattern, usually on my bed to get some ideal of how everything will fit and then I go from there with my adding of sashing.  I also use those pictures to refer to as I am sewing the top together.

After the top is sewn together and you start quilting be aware that very few machines will have the capacity to quilt over the thick heavy plastic type ink such as that used in numbers on jerseys, or the very thick ink, and you will wear holes in your fingers trying to hand quilt that particular type tee.  It is much easier to quilt around those areas.

Hope these hints help you as you begin a journey toward making your own tee shirt quilt, or one for your son or daughter.  Just remember to save those tees so you will have lots of choices.  If you have any questions about techniques I have written about, please feel free to ask.  I really don't have a problem sharing the few things I have learned along my travels.  Have a great day and remember, you are a very special person.