T-Shirt Quilt

When I said I was only going to do one more project this year, I lied.  Well, I misspoke.  I meant it at the time, but facts have proven me wrong.

 

I cleaned up my closet and discovered a bunch of old Federal Express T-shirts that I had saved.  Some were from when we lived in Hawaii and the rest were from when we were in California.  Rather than tossing them, I thought I might try my hand at a T-shirt quilt.  This is when you cut out the printed part of a T-shirt and use it to make squares for a quilt.

 

I would never start a project without my able, slothful, assistant.  And who would want to work with fabric that wasn't covered in cat hair?  Well, I would, but I don't always have that option.  And Lee would never help me, so he is company, of a sort.

I even have one from when I worked in Burbank, before I met Lee.  I may leave that one out.  It was in the early days of Federal Express and the guys all got together and had some shirts made.  The planes flew in to the Memphis hub and then the packages were sorted and flown to their destination overnight.  Back then the service commitment was that the packages would be delivered by noon the next day and Federal Express was the only company that could  consistently do that.  We were proud of that and so the T-shirts were born and they said:  Federal Express - keeps it up all night and gets if off by noon.

Ah, youth.  They all thought it was funny.  Ok, I admit it, I thought it was funny, too.  I still have the shirt.  I probably won't put it in the quilt.  Most likely.

Most of the quilts have been worn and have various stains. I didn't have enough to discard those and I just decided that that will be part of the charm of this quilt.  Or I may applique something over he worst of the stains.  I'll decide that later.

 

I haven't made a quilt on my own, without a class to tell me what to do.  I went to the Fincastle library to find a book on T-shirt quilts.  They have an extensive collection of quilting books and I found one. 

 

Then I hit the Old Trinity Schoolhouse Quilt shop for advice and some supplies.  I bought some fusible interfacing to iron to the back of the T-shirt material to stabilize it.  Federal Express had Purple and Orange as their colors, so I got some of that.  Now that they are FedEx, there are variations on purple and orange for the different services.  The T-shirts I have are from the olden days, though.  Antique.  Last century.  Gosh, I'm old.

 

I cut out the fronts and ironed them to the stabilizer.  This took forever.  I had to force myself to make the first cut and after I was successful with a few of them, it became easier.  Then I cut them to sizes that will work in rows.  Some will be larger than others because I didn't want vast area of white T-shirts on my quilt. 



 

I don't  have an even number, so I think I will fill in with pictures I will attempt to download onto fabric I can run through the printer.  Also purchased at the quilt shop.

 

I am not going to stress about this project, because there is no deadline, so I will work on it when I feel like it.  And when I can decide what goes where.  I need a class!

 

Free Motion Quilting

One of the dirty secrets of quilting is that after you spend hours and hours cutting and piecing to make the quilt, you then have to do a lot more work!  Many quilters, even the finest of quilters, hire people to finish the quilt.  This involves placing the backing, batting and the pieced top into a sandwich and stitching the whole thing together.  Most quilts involve lots of fabric and rotating the quilt under the sewing arm.  This is a pain and probably ruins a lot perfectly beautiful quilts.  Which is why a lot of people hire the quilting done.

The quilt shop I use for quilting classes and fabric, the Old Trinity Schoolhouse Quilt Shop, recently held a class to learn free motion quilting.  Free motion is exactly that.  The feed dogs are little metal teeth in the base of the  sewing machine under the needle.  They push the fabric forward or backward.  If you drop them down and put on a special free motion foot you can move the fabric around all you want.  If you do that while the needle is engaged you can, presumably, make lots of designs while quilting your fabric sandwich.  And all with out having to turn the fabric around to do a circle, etc.

If you could suspend a pencil over a piece of paper, you could place your hands on top of the paper and slide it around to draw a picture.  If you can draw with a pencil, the theory is you can "draw" pictures on the quilt with the needle.  So I guess my biggest problem is I can't draw.  Once I can do that, I can "draw" with needle and thread, no problem.  But I can't, which is why people hire this sort of thing done.  Plus, the professionals all have giant machines for this purpose that practically fill a room and costs thousands!   Which is why they do this for others.  They have to justify the expense, somehow.

Well, I can't draw, with a pencil or otherwise.  And I don't have a fancy quilting machine.  But I do have tenacity!  And I do want to learn the whole part of quilting.  Not just the first part.  If I make a quilt, I want to make the whole thing. 

There is also the part where I don't want to pay someone with mad skills to see my pitiful attempt at quilting.  Oh.  And I'm cheap.

 

For the class we made a sandwich of muslin and batting.  Then we pinned it and sewed it into mostly equal squares.  This way we could practice many techniques.  Some techniques are better for different backgrounds and spaces.  Also, you would probably get bored or tied in knots if you tried to do the same technique for hours and hours.

 

The instructor was great and gave lots of positive feedback.  First she drew a design.  Them we drew it to get it down on paper.  Then we attempted to sew it.  With mixed results.

The hardest parts for me were trying to sew over lines I had just sewn.  I was lucky to get the first circle down.  How am I supposed to follow the line for another go?  Or circles.  I can't draw those well with a pencil.  And the pointy tops of the zig zags.  Oh, and flowers...or stars.  Or pretty much anything!

 

I need to practice a lot before I attempt to do this on a quilt, but it gives me options other than the few other techniques I have used on other projects.  And it has reaffirmed my plan to never try a full size quilt or larger.  You lose enthusiasm long before you are finished.



My friend Marcy was visiting from California.  She wanted to see what I had done in my class.     "THIS is what you learned?", she asked with incredulity. 

 
It looked like a drawing a third grader might do.  In the dark. "It's harder than it looks", I replied.  "If you say so."  I guess I won't be showing her any more of my quilts!

Now I know why quilters use thread to blend in with the fabric.  Any mistakes are mostly invisible and that is what I am going to need for many quilting projects to come.

Don't Do As I Do

   

I had this brilliant idea.  Why cut the borders for my quilt to a set length and then discover it was too short or too long?  I cut them a bit longer until I finished sewing them on and then cut the perfectly on the edges.  How smart am I?

Not so smart.  I guess I pulled a little too much on one of the borders and it got stretched out.  Just a wee bit.  About 1/2 inch.  But enough that I couldn't get the next border to sit properly.  So THAT is why Carolyn at the Old Trinity Quilt shop told me to cut it to size?  Then she reminded me to pin it at each end and the middle and then make sure it fit evenly all along the edge.  This seemed overly fussy to me at the time, and now that I know there is a good reason for it, I will be overly fussy in the future.  I guess I have to know the WHY of something.  I'm too stubborn to just follow the rules.  Gotta know why.  Good thing I'm not in the Army.

   

That meant I had to take out the whole side and then cut a bit off , pin it the RIGHT way and sew it again.  Next I cut and put on the rest of the borders and I am done with the top.

   

I put the quilt away for the rest of the year.  I may get a new sewing machine and I will use that to do the final quilting.  Two of our kids (adult children) are coming for Christmas and when I am working on a project I tend to get engrossed and forget about everything else.  I want to finish it.  Then I need another project.  So I will think about it next year.

   

So what did I do?  I set up the craft room for stained glass, that's what. 

   
   
I will go with the kids to Christiansburg to visit Tech and use that as an excuse to see the stained glass store there.  I hope they are open between Christmas and New Year's.  After I finish the transom I will start thinking about the quilt again.

   

So family will take precedence and I will wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  There will be some baking going on, so I hope to have some recipes to post soon.

New Quilt

I am starting a new quilt.  The class starts next month, but I went and bought the fabric on Wednesday.  I thought I was supposed to buy it early so I could wash and iron it.  You wash it to make sure any shrinking and bleeding is done before you put it all together and have to wash it in the future.  All the work could be ruined  by uneven shrinking or the red bleeding into the white or something.

Because most of it is dark, Caroline at the Trinity Quilt Shop assured me the fabric I chose was OK and even preferable to wait to wash it.  I am trusting you Caroline!

   

This quilt pattern is called Keyboard Kaleidoscope. There is a striped keyboard pattern border and instead of doing all that piecing, the idea is to use a striped fabric.  I love easy, yet wonderful.  The quilt shop recently got in the most beautiful fabric with dark rick colors thinly outlined in gold.  I love them and I am so glad I can use them in this quilt.

   

Caroline helped me pick out some coordinating colors and I am so excited to get started.  The class is only for one day, so I hope to get one star and all the middles cut out.  It is a modified stack and whack type of process.  I have never done it and I am not willing to experiment.  I still feel more comfortable taking classes.  I know I will go off and have to finish on my own, but getting started and learning all the shortcuts from an expert is only way I want to make a quilt.

   

A new quilt!  And I think I will keep this one!

Midnight Madness

Organizing my craft room has made me want to get back into making greeting cards. I am not as good at making cards that I think up and need a lot of help in that regard. My black embossing ink pad had dried up, so I went to Michael's to buy more and to see if they had any books of ideas to make cards. I also hoped to see any items that might jump out and say, USE ME.

I found a few things I wanted and then came home and put them in their places! I LOVE doing that.

One of the new stamps I bought (hey! I know I have plenty, but they were 40% off!)was a pincushion with a few buttons. I thought this would be a good thing to have, what with my new interest in quilting. Then the brain that I can't shut off remembered I had seen a card with paper quilting blocks, so I thought I could put that in the middle. THEN I thought I could even tie it with yarn, like a quilt and give it as a Thank You card for Carolyn at the Old Trinity Schoolhouse Quilt Shop. WHEW! Say that three times fast! I had really enjoyed my class and learned a lot and she was VERY patient with me.

I would have to wait on the thank you, though. I was leaving for California in two days and the last class was the next morning. No time. So I wrote down my ideas on a piece of paper. Then I had a few more ideas and wrote THOSE down, knowing if I didn't they would run through my head and keep me from sleeping. I put the notes aside and went to bed.

About 1:00 I woke up. By 3:00 I gave up and went up to the craft room and started stamping. I embossed the cards and colored in the pincushion. The first one I used marking pens and the second one I used watercolor pencils. Then I took a small brush and wet it a tiny bit. I wiped it on my wrist to dry it a bit and then went over the pencil marks. This turns the lines into watercolor and you can spread it around the embossed area.




Next I had to remember the dimensions of one of the Flying Geese quilt blocks. I cut one piece of paper from my scrapbooking stash 2" X 4". Then I cut a different piece 2" X 2" and then cut that one on the diagonal so that I had 2 triangles. (Never once did I think that a person should not use and Exacto blade at 4 AM.) I glued these on the longer piece in a Flying Geese pattern and was pretty proud of myself! And by the way, gluing is way easier than sewing. But I don't think paper quilts will catch on.



I cut some batting slightly larger that the "quilt" block and then used some white yarn to tie knots in the quilt piece through the back of the card.





I was pretty happy with myself and wanted to blog about it right then and there. Then I realized that putting anything on the internet at 5 AM is probably not a good idea. I went to bed and read until I could get to sleep. Love the mini book lights!

My First Quilt

Quilts are big in the south. I suppose they are popular elsewhere, but here they are huge. My first hint was the very large section in the library stacks devoted to quilts. And the magazines. I grew up with quilts from my mother's family and I love all that they represent.

So I decided to learn to make a quilt. Now I learn better by doing and I prefer to have someone show me how to do something, rather than try to figure it out from a book. So I knew I would need to take a class. There is the cutest, old wooden building on the top of a hill in Troutville. It is the Old Trinity Schoolhouse Quilt Shop. It used to be...wait for it....a schoolhouse and now it is a....quilt shop! They have bolt after bolt of fabrics to make quilts and they give classes. I recently took a wool applique class there with my friend Doris and I convinced her to take a quilt class with me.

Doris has made a number of quilts already, but she was willing to take a beginners class on the assumption that you can always learn something new. I hope she does as I am afraid my ignorance will hold her back. It turns out, we are the only two in the class, so we should get all the individual attention we need!

The first day was devoted to leaning about the different types of quilts and to pick out the fabric for our quilt project. Doris already had hers, so she kindly helped me with mine. I'll write about the class and how I'm doing as I go and then show you the finished quilt. depending on how hard it is and how well it turns out, I will do more. I like the fiber arts and hope this is something I can learn. Not too sure about the machine I have. I'm also not willing to buy a new one until I see if this is something I will continue.

The first thing I have to do is wash the fabric so that any shrinking or bleeding of colors will be done before it is finished and needs cleaning. Then I have to iron it and buy the proper foot for my machine. I'll keep you posted on my progress.




Oh, I also have to keep the cats off it. Right. Like that'll happen.


It's not like they are curious or want to get in the plastic bags...