T-Shirt Quilt: First Quilt Finish of 2018

I'm back! Did ya miss me? The hubby and I spent the last few weeks spoiling the grandkids. While there I had technical difficulties with posting on my blog, so finally gave up and decided I'd tackle it when I returned home. It's still acting a little squirrely but hoping it'll work itself out. So, here's the post I tried to share a couple of weeks ago.....

The stack of t-shirts had been gathering dust for years in my sewing room. At least now the stack has been transformed into a quilt and can now gather dust in my daughter’s house instead! Ha! But seriously, I’m happy to be able to mark this one off my to do list.

I surprised my daughter with this quilt last week. I don’t think she realized I still had some of her old high school & college shirts. She had told me to take them to the thrift store years ago, but I couldn’t give her memories away. This quilt spans from her high school years into adulthood & motherhood as a couple of her son’s baby K-State t-Shirts found their way into the quilt also. 

I cut the largest shirts into 15” finished squares then cut the smaller shirts & logos into sizes, that when combined would create a 15” square. I sashed the blocks with 1” finished sashes, alternating either with black or white. I then added a 4” border, making opposite corner quadrants either black or white. I like the finished effect.

For the backing, I sewed several scrap pieces from my stash using blacks, whites, grays, reds & one K-State camo piece. I didn’t have enough scraps so I purchased the scribbly black, white & gray fabric by Kim Schaefer for Andover to complete the back.

I quilted it on the longarm with an edge-2-edge pattern called Pick Up Sticks by Anne Bright using a variegated gray Signature thread. The binding is a black & white striped fabric.

I did have a little problem with skipped stitches on one sweatshirt with heavy embroidery. The bigger skips I tried to re-quilt with slightly better results, but left a couple that I didn't think would improve. I don't think anyone will ever notice.

I had hoped to photograph this quilt out in the Texas wild but the weather was rainy and uncooperative, so I apologize for the rather poor quality of the photos.

Quilt Stats:

• Quilt Size: 76” x 76”
• Quilt Pattern: Original design
• Sashing & Border Fabrics: Moda Bella Solids 9900 98 white & 9900 99 black
• T-Shirt Backing: Pellon SF101 
• Shirts: Variety of cotton T-shirts, sweatshirts & nylon windbreakers
• Backing Fabrics: Various scraps from stash plus yardage of Pattern 8563 by Kim Schaefer for Andover Fabrics.
• Binding Fabric: Black & white stripe from Lella Boutique’s Olive’s Flower Market
• Batting: Hobbs 80/20
• Piecing Thread: Aurifil 2024
• Quilting Thread: Signature variegated gray
• Quilting Pattern: Pick Up Sticks by Anne Bright
• Longarm: Gammill Statler Stitcher

-Sharla

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