Diana leaves for college in just five days, so I've been working on things for her to take to school with her. Yeah, I know... I was supposed to be cleaning up my sewing room. I'm making progress, but sure didn't make my deadline of getting the place cleaned up by the end of July. In the meantime, I've actually been sewing.
One of the items Diana really wanted was a quilt made of all the t-shirts from her high school drama productions. She was very proud of participating in eight different productions, and asked me to make the quilt once she graduated. How could I refuse? Even if I hadn't made a t-shirt quilt before?
No matter. In the last few years I've become very fond of an iron-on stabilizer from Rowley Company. It's designed for the drapery industry, and is higher-quality than the stuff found in craft stores. I buy it by the bolt and use it for everything.
So I had to take these eight long-sleeve t-shirts and turn them into a quilt.
The first step was to carefully cut the shirts apart. Each shirt had designs on the front, back, and one sleeve. So I had to trim, flatten, iron and stabilize 24 pieces of t-shirt.
Then came the fun part: fitting all the pieces together. It took a bit of shuffling, but I finally came up with a satisfactory arrangment.
Sewing it together went pretty quickly, and yesterday I gave Diana the finished product.
She asked me to back it with purple minky.
To hold the layers together, I tied it at some of the intersections with purple embroidery floss, knotting the threads, sealing the knots with Fray Block, and clipping off the ends.
Diana's boyfriend, Alex, likes it too (although I suspect he likes what's wrapped in it more).
One of the items Diana really wanted was a quilt made of all the t-shirts from her high school drama productions. She was very proud of participating in eight different productions, and asked me to make the quilt once she graduated. How could I refuse? Even if I hadn't made a t-shirt quilt before?
No matter. In the last few years I've become very fond of an iron-on stabilizer from Rowley Company. It's designed for the drapery industry, and is higher-quality than the stuff found in craft stores. I buy it by the bolt and use it for everything.
So I had to take these eight long-sleeve t-shirts and turn them into a quilt.
The first step was to carefully cut the shirts apart. Each shirt had designs on the front, back, and one sleeve. So I had to trim, flatten, iron and stabilize 24 pieces of t-shirt.
Then came the fun part: fitting all the pieces together. It took a bit of shuffling, but I finally came up with a satisfactory arrangment.
Sewing it together went pretty quickly, and yesterday I gave Diana the finished product.
She asked me to back it with purple minky.
To hold the layers together, I tied it at some of the intersections with purple embroidery floss, knotting the threads, sealing the knots with Fray Block, and clipping off the ends.
Diana's boyfriend, Alex, likes it too (although I suspect he likes what's wrapped in it more).
Awww, that is soooo lovely! best of luck to Diana as she head off to college!
ReplyDeleteWhat an AWESOME way to preserve old t-shirts! I'm linking, Welmoed!!
ReplyDeletebeautiful! This is awesome. I'd love to make a quilt like this some day -- I've got lots of old awesome shirts I just don't wear.
ReplyDelete