T-shirt Quilt Takes Shape!
Jan. 15th, 2009 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rbDuring 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
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
![[identity profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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
and if it gets too big to fit on a bed, you can always use it as a wall hanging!
*hugs*
(is it just not displaying very well on my monitor, or are most of the squares solid colors?)
(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.)
i want to come see it. (if i could, i'd come help sew it!)
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. :/
I'm so glad you're going well :)
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!
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 :)
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...
(Still got that wretched cold, by the way. Intend to bring you shortbread when I can, though.)
Shortbread = YUMMY though. Birthday shortbread, doubly so :)
Thanks for the pots, BTW. Come visit again soon :)