Monday, December 17, 2018

Makin' It Monday-The T-Shirt Quilt (And cookies)!

I've owed my daughter a T-shirt quilt for a couple of years now. Every so often she asks me where it is. I've been struggling with the darned thing on and off. I did make one once before for my son, but he is one of those "if it's not black, gray or blue, I don't want it" kind of guy.. So while I had one less than perfect one under my belt, this one has been driving me crazy. 


Tshirt quilt all same sized

T-shirt quilt with patchwork blocks-my goal right now, from Etsy

T-shirt quilt with all the shirts sewn together-a look I like but the requires MANY quilts. All quilts found on Etsy, I'm pretty sure!

Now, the worse part of a shirt quilt is the ever loving math. Because all those pretty pictures aside, the chance of having each T-shirt section be the same size is slim to none unless you have a large guy or commit to cutting each shirt the same size even if the writing on said T- shirt is tiny. Some of my daughter's logos were as small as a Washington Redskins Icon and some were the size of the whole shirt-and she's a small girl. 

So when I first jumped into this along time ago, I cut out the whole front (or back in some cases of the shirt.  Then I ironed on interfacing to all the t-shirts to make them easy to handle, and then I used my trusty ruler and cutting thingie to cut the shirts into rectangles or squares.  While time consuming, I worked on this in fits and starts and the working part was actually pretty easy. Anyone who can sew can do this (anyone who can sew can do the quilt, actually)  

Ironed on interfacing


Then came the math part, lol. Because you really want all the squares (blocks) to be the same size, even when shirt pieces are not. So I figured out what the tallest piece was and what the widest piece was and then figured each square had to be eighteen inches (some could have more than one small t-shirt piece inside).  



Very little squares and very big squares!

This blue was just much too bright to be the only fabric in said quilt.


And this was exactly where I was on the old quilt. Big and small pieces of fabric had been cut and sewn to the shirt pieces so that all the squares were the same size. All done with the bright blue in the picture. Then, at some point, I stopped. Because I hated the bright blue, thought maybe there should be some patchwork blocks in between the shirt blocks, and because I wanted to quilt to have more than one fabric. A couple of weeks ago I picked it up, decided on starting over and picked apart all the seams of the partially finished quilt-oh joy.

Now I'm back to where I was before-choosing fabrics and figuring the layout. This time, because I was making the quilt more complicated, because I'm visual and because I suck at math, I printed out grid paper for each individual quilt block. It's not a girl or guy thing. My daughter with the logical brain loves computations and has taken all higher college math courses and excelled-like her late stepfather. My son, on the other hand, originally wanted to be an engineer. Until the day he walked into the house and said "I was lucky to pass Calculus 1,  no way I'm going to be passing (never mind getting an A or B) a higher math class than this so it's time to change my major." He takes after me. The grid paper and my colored pencils should get me some idea of what I am doing and help make a plan. Because it's the plan, not the actual sewing when it comes to this kind of quilt, and much of quilting in general.




I also grabbed one fabric I saw that I liked, and plan to go on a search for others, I am not sure this one is a keeper and I want at least four coordinates.

Originally when I asked DD what she wanted, she said "surprise me". Having said that, I'm still taking the quilt to Dallas (after all, that's why I drive rather than fly, so I can take what I want) and we'll see if she wants to do fabric explorations. Either way, a project is now on it's way to fruition-at some point-and you may well see my colored grids and quilt designs over on Facebook or the blog as I get my designing hat on. 

Yes, that's alot of stuff on the top of my counters. But remember, I neither bend well, nor reach well, and often have no one to help me. So while it's usually cleaner and less cluttered than this, the utensils, spices, knives, dog biscuits, toaster, coffee maker and multiple other appliances are out on my counter top.


Now it's time to bake some cookies. I am going less than crazy this year. If I have two dozen of three shapes of sugar cookies, I'll be fine. If I get Mexican wedding rings or others done, I'll consider it extra! Because in the end, decorated sugar cookies are all that matters.

2 comments:

  1. I really love t-shirt quilts! I had one made for my husband and the woman who did it used the patchwork blocks similar to your second photo. She even included the neckline of one shirt and the pocket area of another. When it came to the actually quilting the front to the back, she free handed quilted the shapes of the logos. We also added patches from organizations he belonged to. It turned out great! One day I might get another made for me.

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  2. My wife made a T-shirt quilt for each of our daughters and another one for our RV. They were such treasures and so full of memories. Congrats to you, Barb, for your perseverance!

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