Will's T-Shirt Quilt

My friend Emily wanted me to make a T-Shirt quilt for her son graduating high school. Just a small and simple one. So, she sneaked away several of his t-shirts and passed them along to me. 

Now, although I have quilted several t-shirt quilts, it has been a while since I have actually made one myself. After a few conversations with my quilt clients, I had a plan of attack! The first issue was how to cut out these shirts. They stretch and contort so easily! And the biggest square ruler I have is 12.5 inches. So, what I did was to take a piece of poster-board and cut it 18 inches square. Then, I made a 15 inch window centered inside of it by measuring 3 inches from the edge and cutting it with my rotary cutter and long ruler. Now I could place it on top of the shirt and center the design. I used a chalk pencil or water soluble marker to carefully outline a 15 inch square on the shirt, then used scissors to cut the shirts out. It was so quick and easy! I had all 12 shirts cut out in 30 minutes.  

After you cut out your interfacing at 15 inches square and iron them onto the backs, trim them up again to 14.5 inches square. Now they are much easier to work with and won't stretch and contort on you so much. I used the markings on my cutting mat for this part. My sashing was cut 2.5 inches wide. 

For the quilting I used a gray thread and did an all-over freestyle, along with outlining the shirt designs, adding stars to the black cornerstones, and a few fun designs in the large blank spaces. The red binding was attached by my domestic sewing machine using a walking foot.

This one block was made with three shirts. Bonus!

I told Emily to purchase a large fuzzy throw blanket to use for the backing. She got it on sale, being springtime and all. Score! The red and black match the quilt perfectly and it will get lots of use for sure with it being so thick and soft. I used Hobbs 80/20 for the batting.

Thanks Emily for the fun project! Also, thanks to my quilt guild friends who helped me with the layout/shirt placement while working on it at our guild retreat. The blacks, reds, and blues are spaced just right! And, Good Luck Will at Iowa State!! Go Cyclones! :)

Peg's black/gray jelly roll

Peg also made this neat black and gray quilt with some strips.

I quilted all-over in a gray thread a feathered paisley design.

A solid gray back. Oh yeah.

Thanks Peggy!

Peg's Norwegian Rosemaling Embroidery Quilt

Peggy made this huge quilt with lots of beautiful Norwegian rosemaling machine embroidery designs. 

I barely had enough floor space for a decent picture.

I used a light silver gray thread and did an overall quilting everywhere but the white embroidered squares.

Then, in a white thread, I SID the white blocks, outlined the design, and filled the background in with smaller scale designs.

Such pretty designs and colors!

A peek at the purple back.

Thanks Peggy! I loved quilting around these beautiful embroideries!!

Berenstain Bears and Around the World Baby quilts

Susie made these two little person quilts. Love this Berenstain Bears baby quilt. 

Pretty simple quilting with big swirls in the scenic panel.

And some square spirals for the outside border.

This around the world quilt was another cute one. 

I went a bit wild with my thread color choice- bright yellow!

It's not too showy, it blends in well with the bright colors, but there is a bit of bright contrast to it that makes it fun.

I quilted lots of florals, leaves and swirls all over.

Thanks Susie for the giant tub of awesome quilts!

RWB DNP Baby qulit

Norene (who also made this Red White and Blue DNP) made this similar version in a baby quilt. 

I quilted an all-over feathered paisley design on it, as I wasn't sure if it was for a boy or a girl.

Love the little 30's prints mixed into it. 

Thanks Norene!

Chris's baby quilt

These square- in a square-in a couple more squares blocks were my do Good Stitches blocks for April. Our instructions were to fussy cut something for the center, and use a white on the outside of one, and black for the other. I went with a Chicago Bears Football theme for one and a cutesy garden theme for the other. 

Chris had this sweet little baby quilt she wanted custom quilted up.

This is what I ended up doing- a c2c design in the 4-patch blocks and a flower in the setting squares.

Pretty darling! Thanks Chris!

Denim Quilt

Susie made this denim quilt out of old blue jeans.

She did the right thing by making her seam allowances a tiny bit wider than the usual 1/4 inch, and by pressing them all open. That's much easier on the old quilt machine for sure.

This quilt was being gifted to her nephew, so I kept it simple with large swirls and circles. 

The only issues I ran into with quilting was my top thread kept breaking. So there were a lot of stops and restarts and some tension adjusting, but I pushed through and was able to improve things.

Other than that, the good old Nolting 24" powered through without a problem.

Hello there ladybug!

Thanks Susie! Anyone else want to cut up all their old jeans now?

RW&B DNP

Norene made this Disappearing 9-patch quilt for her granddaughter, who requested a red white and blue quilt. Very striking!

I quilted all-over paisley swirls on it.

Red back, white thread.

Thanks Norene!