I forced Daniel to spend part of a day with me to clean his room before he leaves for college. When we opened the closet, he produced a huge stack of t-shirts and asked if I'd make them into a quilt. There were other shirts he'd given me for this purpose in my craft room, so I knew there would be enough. I started immediately in hopes of getting it back before we drive him to Texas.
On a trip to Quilter's Heaven for another project, I saw a t-shirt quilt on the long arm. I learned a lot from it! The quilter didn't use rows, but favored columns. Each column was a long strip of various t-shirts strung together and separated with sashing. She also cut up various elements of the shirts and recombined them. I used both techniques in this layout.
I quickly realized how HUGE hockey jerseys are! The hockey jersey "blocks" are the height of two blocks plus sashing. I cut various elements from the shirts - logos, name, player numbers, etc. Using Wonder Under, I created iron-on "decals" to place on the background of the block; then I stitched them on. All his activities from middle and high school are here: baseball, hockey, band, percussion camps, MYA. The center block is the UNT t-shirt from the college visit weekend. Sashing and backing are red flannel. This quilt started out to be a lap size and quickly grew to this large size - it should cover the regulation issue college Twin XL bed! LOL
WOW~ you have been busy! Big changes happening in your household. I like the way you added sashing around the jerseys and tees. I am like you and never realized how big a hockey jersey is. Great job!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you posted this - I've been saving Jake's shirts for this purpose. Was the quilt still soft with the backing? And the red sashing - brilliant!
ReplyDeleteIts fab Jo! Great work!
ReplyDeleteMichelle - the quilt WAS soft! I have made two others that were not as soft. I think that it was the backing of each square. T-shirts have to be stabilized by applying a fusible interfacing to the back of each one. This makes them workable by preventing stretching. When I went to QH, the woman who waited on me said they have a customer who does many t-shirt quilts for profit. She said that this quilter has a preferred fusible, so that's the one I bought. It's a woven product - which is exactly the opposite of what my instructions called for. The non-wovens are stiffer, imo. If you want to know the name, I will check the product - I still have a teeny bit left, along with the fusing instructions.
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