Friday, October 28, 2011

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.....







Wednesday, October 26, 2011

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  

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

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!