I am on a roll, I hope I keep this up...

Everyone seems to be counting down the days to Christmas already...and yup Halloween has not yet passed us by.....
But you see in Quilting land the countdown is being shouted out to try to help us quilter's keep track of our time, some of us have hopes of completing some projects in time to give as gifts this Christmas "yup this year" ;-) Notice "the this year". 

Well I have been on a good roll this past week, I hope I can keep the pace.....

Here is the second quilt top completed and now waiting in line for the HQ16. I have a couple more tops I want to complete before I begin quilting them.

This quilt is a special request by my mom; she asked for a special sized quilt to use while she sits in her lazy boy. It seems the other quilts I made her seem to bulky or heavy so by special request here it is:

This quilt is long and skinny sized special for my mom.

And notice my next photo, it will give you a hint of what project I am working on now...

[Also notice in the photo's background my mom's quilt top with the Minky backing I will be backing her quilt with to make it as my one son stated "SO SOFT!"

Heather's t-shirt quilt in next in line.

So it's back to the sewing machine for me...... Hope you ENJOY!

Rock Concert Quilt Top is ready to.......

So I have completed the rock concert t-shirt quilt top...it will be put aside for a little while before I roll it on my HQ16  to quilt. It is amazing how heavy this quilt is already due to the t-shirts? I am trying to decide whether to quilt as two layers or 3, meaning my son has requested the backing be soft, meaning "Minky" as it's back so that in itself can also be heavy then add a layer of cotton batting and wow!?
Oh well time will tell...... I'll let you know in the future my decision....
So here is a peek...and the bed it is laid on for photo is our queen size guest bed so yup this is a huge lap quilt. Even with the shrinkage quilting will cause I believe he will have at least a nice size full bed quilt.

Quilt top completed next step: Mid-arm quilting

This is a queen size mattress, but I know there will be some shrinkage when quilting is added.

Oh I forgot to possibly explain my last steps of process? 

As I explained in past posts; Gather your t-shirts, cut them apart then iron them, next iron on light interfacing of your choice, then lay out the t-shirts so you can see what you have to work with and semi decide on design, next cut the t-shirts into their rectangles. At this point I tried to work down my columns and cut the t-shirts to be sewn in each column the same width.  After my 4 columns were sewn in strips I then attach each column together to complete the 4 column quilt top. At this point I was not happy with the width versus height so I took leftover backs of the black t-shirts and created two 5 1/2  inch wide  strips that I sewed to the edges both sides. You can possibly notice the strip in my first photo. I have enough black t-shirt material to make a border for the bottom edge of quilt top and probably will do this before I quilt the top. But for right now I've got a crock pot calling out to me to stir. Hope you enjoyed.

This was last evening...3 columns sewn 1 more to add but looking too skinny to me

Almost done...

I am close ....very close to having the Rock Concert t-shirt quilt-top sewn together...one more column to add and it will be ready for me to quilt...
Sadly I just ran out of steam tonight so it will have to wait till tomorrow for completion...
Here's a peek.... I figure it's safe to post photo because it's doubtful my son reads my blog....

One more column to attach...

See you tomorrow....

Promised to post more process along the way

So I am coming along on the t-shirt quilt. Now if I did not share with you the theme of this t-shirt quilt is Concerts, dare I call them Rock Concerts not sure anymore if Pantera, Poison or Metallica are classified Rock? lol but heck these are my son's t-shirts.
So let's back track I mentioned you #1 cut the t-shirts apart, #2 & #3 iron on some type of light interfacing of your choice. The next step at least for me was to organize the t-shirts into rows seeing how the sizes could coordinate and hopefully balance the designs & colors. After placing the t-shirts all into rows I realized there are enough t-shirts for me to complete this quilt top using only t-shirts, not sewing borders of fabric to each square as I have in the past. Here is an example of one of my past t-shirt quilts.

Son JB's College Football Quilt

A lot of my other t-shirt quilts have had t-shirts of many different sizes so to make them all intermix into a cohesive design I used borders of coodinating fabrics.

Well this quilt top should be large enough thanks to the load of t-shirts my son Brian has AND the t-shirts are all about the same size so I am hoping to sew them basically into columns then sew the columns together into a quilt top.

Here are the t-shirts placed into 4 columns

So today I got the lap quilt-top sewn together and began trimming the t-shirts and managed to begin sewing the first column together.....

lap quilt top and 1st column of Concert t-shirt quilt top

Tomorrow it will be back to the sewing machine...

I am hoping to have both quilt tops completed by tomorrow end of day....because as I mentioned I have so many projects and so little time till Christmas.....

It's T-shirt quilt time!

So I have so many projects I need to complete and quite a few of them hopefully in time for Christmas?
Eeekkkkkkkkkkkkk! Christmas is really just around the corner...

Well for now here's a little of my process when making a t-shirt quilt top. Little do my children really realize the time and effort that goes into the quilt. At least they relate to the "LOVE" part involved.

So first you get to gather the many t-shirts your someone feels are "Special for whatever reason to them"

make sure to be careful cutting the front and back apart I once in a hurry did not check the back of one of the t-shirts I was working with and cut right through an important item. ;-( luckily I was able to salvage my mistake.

So here are the t-shirts cut apart and laid out for consideration.

next you get to iron the t-shirt before adding your interfacing

measuring my interfacing

then you get to iron on your chosen interfacing

Yup you have to do this to each t-shirt

After ironing the interfacing to each of your t-shirts you then get to cut them into your various squares or rectangles and decide on your quilt top design. I promise to post more photos as the quilt top evolves.
I am working on two t-shirt quilts right now and I am trying to complete a new lap quilt for my mom...

Hoping to have this quilt top sewn together by end of day.

Well as I mentioned....I have so many projects so little time so it's time to get back to work.....

I have also set a new goal! I have been stuck making loads of functional quilts versus art quilting  recently...so look out January 2012 is going to be the month of ONLY art quilts.

Okay now so it's back to the studio for me......ttyl  

It's been too long

Once again I find myself beginning by stating "it's been too long"??  Does anyone else find it difficult to stop everything that is taking place in their life to sit down and post in their blog? I seem to have hit a wall lately in my organization skills or possibly just rearranged my priorities a little and gotten out of sync with my old habits. I'll share a little of what I've had going on and then hope I get back to my old habits RE: posting on my blog soon.
So let's see as of late I baby sat 2 full weekends in PA during the past 5 weekends for my daughter and  during that time span I made a "Robin" costume Caleb's request for Halloween.

Caleb trying on the "Robin" costume

That costume got my daughter thinking how much fun it would be for Brynn to be "Wonder Woman" and then possibly Daddy Nate could wear a "Batman" t-shirt or ? and Mommy Keli could come up with some "Cat Woman" get up while the family goes to their Halloween parade's and such this year so grandma had to create "Wonder Woman" for 2 year old - Brynn  ha-ha

Brynn's "Wonder Woman" costume

Guess who just turned 50..YAY!

I also made a quick trip to MI where I was able to enjoy my sister-in-law's 50th birthday celebration,

MI Son and wife "Brian and Heather"

My Mommy and Daddy {90 and 87}

I was able to visit with my son and his wife AND had a great visit with my folks, 

Ryan and Missy

Baby quilt and blanket

I also attended two baby showers. Here's the baby quilt's for Ryan and Missy's future baby boy. All this during my one 4.5 day trip to good ole Clinton Township MI.As you can see I have been a very busy person. Last weekend we had MI company in VA, so you can see the fun continues.

Now I hope I can be as successful down the way to getting back to my old schedule of posting regularly on my blog so I don't have to rack my brain to remember what exactly I wanted to and haven't shared yet.

Gotta repeat one thing though....."Fall does speak to my soul". Enjoy!