T-shirt Quilt Takes Shape!

[rb]

During very first Stitch & Bitch ever, Jacinta showed us a quilt she was edging. The quilt was made of patches of pairs of "old favourite" jeans which were pieced together. It was stunning and I fell in love with it immediately!

It just so happened that my cupboard has been full of "old favourite" T-shirts which I can no longer wear but also can't bear to part with, so a plan formed itself in my brain. Later on, socks were added to the plan. And it kept getting more byzantine as we went along.

Also, the not-yet-made quilt kept getting hypothetically larger. Eventually it's ended up with 20cm squares (once they're sewn together - they're 22cm squares at the moment) and 10x9 rows, plus any border which we add. Yes, this is excessive. I'm thinking I can leave it on the double (or is it a queen size?) bed which I use as a sort of sofa in my room.

Today we finally finished sorting and creating the squares and laid it all out on the floor for the first time! I had the pattern more-or-less in my head but this was the first time we could actually see it. And the first time that Asma (my PCA who's done almost all of the hard work) could see what had been in my head. We were both thrilled with how it looked laid out on the floor so we took an excessive number of photographs. Here are two - they're biggish so I'll just link rather than including the photos:

T-shirt quilt overview - if it were any bigger, it wouldn't have fit on my floor!

T-shirt quilt detail - a slightly closer view of part of it. The blocks which are made up of four smaller blocks are pieces of old socks I've loved and lost the pairs for!

Each piece is now carefully marked with it's place in spreadsheet fashion, so my floor has been reclaimed. I can't wait to get this baby finished :)

r

Comments

[From: mudita88.livejournal.com]

Love it! Nice socks! :)

[From: rb]

Thanks! I like silly socks a lot :)

[From: acelightning.livejournal.com]

what a marvelous idea!

that's what people often did long ago - sew together scraps from various favorite pieces of clothing (or other textiles) to make a "memory quilt". of course you've got to show it to sheramil's mum ;-)

and if it gets too big to fit on a bed, you can always use it as a wall hanging!

*hugs*

[From: rb]

It was definitely the memory quilt type idea that I wanted it to be like. Did you notice the shirt that sheramil made me about 10 years ago? It's the faded black with "Big Scary Pervert" in red :) And I'll definitely show his mum and everybody else who I can force to look at it. It's so much fun! *bounce*

[From: acelightning.livejournal.com]

yes, i saw that - right near the middle, too!

(is it just not displaying very well on my monitor, or are most of the squares solid colors?)

[From: rb]

Most are solid colours. There's probably about ... 20% or 30% which aren't solid colours? I haven't counted exactly.

[From: acelightning.livejournal.com]

ah, okay. at first i thought you were just using the decorated fronts of t-shirts with pictures and slogans on them - i'm sure you do have enough of those to make a quilt ;-D

[From: rb]

I don't, actually. These are all the old T-shirts I had and we got as many squares out of each as we could - that's why lots don't have printing on!

[From: acelightning.livejournal.com]

well, having every square with a design on it might be visually too "busy" and overpowering, so a checkerboard of alternating plain and decorated squares would probably be better anyway. and you do have enough different colors there to give it a subtle large-scale pattern. and all that cotton knit is going to make a very soft and cozy quilt, which will keep you both emotionally and physically warm next winter!

(i've got the big fluffy doona on my bed - it's -13° C/0° F here, at eight o'clock in the morning! but the big fluffy doona is just plain beige.)

[From: rb]

I alternated the light and dark colours, and tried to also make the decorated ones vaguely equidistant. The light/dark should be strongest at the top left corner and least strong at the bottom right corner - that was the idea at least!!

[From: acelightning.livejournal.com]

yeah... i can see the "fade" from upper-left to lower-right, kind of an Escher effect. nifty!

[From: rb]

That's one part that I was so thrilled about working - I wanted to create it but wasn't at all certain it would be visible :)

[From: acelightning.livejournal.com]

it's subtle, but it's visible. i think it will be more visible when it's sewn together and spread out.

i want to come see it. (if i could, i'd come help sew it!)

[From: amethyst-clan.livejournal.com]

Wow! That's amazing.

[From: rb]

Thanks :) I'm having heaps of fun - I hope it works out as well as I think it will!

[From: azurelunatic]

My mother observed that T-shirt quilts tend to stretch in odd ways, so you may wish to consider quilting each T-shirt square, and maybe some of the sock squares, to a non-stretching backing fabric first, before top assembly.

[From: rb]

Your mother is entirely correct, and ideally I'd do it that way but unfortunately if I tried it the damm thing would never ever ever get finished.

Also, they're all very old and very well-loved T-shirts so there generally isn't that much stretch left in them. My plan is to sew them all together with the sewing machine, then tack all the corners to the backing. Then we can do extra tacking any places it's stretched oddly, or add a bit of iron-on interfacing in cases of major catastrophe!

Having to get one of my aides to do all the actual sewing really puts a kink in my creative endevours... but without her interest in it I wouldn't be able to do it at all. :/

[From: azurelunatic]

Iron-on interfacing rocks all kinds of socks. :D

[From: rb]

... and covers up a multitude of sins :)

[From: obscenely.livejournal.com]

That is fantastic. Oh I wish I had the patience! I really admire it.

[From: rb]

Hey, you have lots of patience. You're just using it all up on your years-long treatment protocol. That's more patience in my book that something like this!!

I'm so glad you're going well :)

[From: australian-joe.livejournal.com]

Nice idea! And something you can totally pick up and put away again, it doesn't force a lot of attention in a row.

[From: rb]

It's 90% not my work to do because it's not much hand-sewn. Asma gets to do all the hard parts! I just have to teach her how and then let her know what I want and then quality-check the final product. Well, OK, a bit more than that but ... yeah :)

[From: braunie.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely I find it very difficult to part with my favorite T's. But have no crafty ambitions/skills whatever in that arena. What a cool idea--go you!

[From: rb]

Thanks for the encouragement :) It's a cool way of using them up without throwing them out!!

[From: belle-marmotte.livejournal.com]

I think the t-shirt quilt idea is fab! Go you.
I saw the same thing somewhere else on something crafty but done with different sized squares, which just boggled my mind.

Can't wait to see how it progresses!

[From: rb]

Thanks! *snugs*

They're much much MUCH easier to do with same sized squares but quilting in general isn't the "tricky" type of hard, it's just the "lots of repetitions" type of hard in the way knitting is.

I'll keep you up to date :)

[From: shadow-5tails.livejournal.com]

What a lovely idea!

And kinda vindicating, I'll confess. Since patchwork, as I understand it, developed as a frugal way to use up excess fabric & offcuts, I've always found the idea of doing it with specially-bought fabrics a little counterintuitive...

[From: rb]

I'm totally with you on the "people buy special fabrics for this!?" school of thought. It seems entirely bizarre to me.

[From: shadow-5tails.livejournal.com]

Oh, I understand why people buy special fabrics for it - some of the results are absolutely luscious! But I'm also very pleased when I see people actually patchworking as an exercise in "making it last." *grins and hugs*

(Still got that wretched cold, by the way. Intend to bring you shortbread when I can, though.)

[From: rb]

You, girl, have the neverending colds of DOOOOOOOM!!!

Shortbread = YUMMY though. Birthday shortbread, doubly so :)

[From: shadow-5tails.livejournal.com]

Don't I just know it? I blame a CFS-addled immune system, but I wish there were something I could do about it. *scowl*

[From: riotqueerfemme.livejournal.com]

Very, very cool. Love the pervert and racism blocks!

[From: rb]

There's some great ones. Can't wait to show you when it's done!!

Thanks for the pots, BTW. Come visit again soon :)