Re: Quilt In Progress

Several days ago, it was suggested within a post that it would be fun to see photos of member’s quilts as they are in progress. Therefore, I will begin another t-shirt journey with you. Please do keep in mind that I am open to suggestions and criticisms alike.

My first t-shirt quilt was our son’s pre-K days through his college days. With its black sashing and gold accents (college colors), it turned out nicely even though some of his old KISS t-shirts and football-wrestling shirts were in shambles. My second t-shirt quilt was for a gentleman who had several new shirts from his charity runs. Notice that key word "new." :) The backgrounds were white upon all shirts which led to uniformity. I was able to surround quilt with flying geese and cornerstones. He is presently using it as a large wall hanging in his office.

Now comes my third t-shirt quilt---a high school volleyball player with a rainbow of orange, red, purple, pink, yellow, black, etc t-shirt! Yipes, those colors are hard to arrange but the memories for her will be enormous.

My first step (Photo #1) was to jot out some grafting of attack. Then I sorted, slit shirts apart, fused logos and re-cut blocks. (Photos #2) In Photo #3, I salvaged one large name decal (Photo#3) which I will make a pillow case or permanent cover, surrounded by four-inch blocks cut from various t-shirt leftovers.

I have been able to utilize over twenty of her t-shirts, plus a combination of others. At this juncture, all blocks have been fused and squared. After I appliqué/embellish a few, more sashing will continue. (Photo #4)

Because of the width of words and decals, the quilt will be slightly larger than planned—possibly a queen sized! Therefore, I am becoming concerned about the ease of home machine quilting it, although I am fortunate to own a Bernina 820. Some of the shirts have 13-inch wide heavy plastic-like logos/words and therein lies my question.

Have any of you quilted through large plastic emblems upon a t-shirt? (See last photo-my apologies for blurry photo.)

I will continue to post my weekly progress and thank everyone in advance for comments, suggestions and, yes, I take criticisms.
Happy Stitches from All Thumbs…………………

I'm not getting any photos. But I think if the emblem is plastic and not screen printing you might be better off quiling around it.

Oh, there they are.

I can only see one of your pictures. It sounds like you have a great plan, however I'm not sure I would quilt "through" the plastic emblems but would quilt "around" each one, making it stand out more. (You might try quilting "through" on a throw-away shirt and see how you like it.) You are getting to be THE expert at T-shirt quilts!!!

Five photos are showing on my post.
jamsbuying - do you see them all now?
It did take a few moments to load after I posted words.
Thanks - All Thumbs

Thanks for posting! I've always wanted to do a T-shirt quilt.

Thanks for sharing. You appear to be the resident expert so I a look forward to learning from your progressive posts. In future posts, please link back to earlier ones so that we easily find them. My daughter has mentioned a T-Shirt quilt when she graduates from college (University of Arkansas - - GO HOGS!!!) in May so I had better pay attention.

Gosh, I never thought about linking back to earlier posts--not even sure I know how but here goes. Let's see if this will take you back to my questions about fabric softeners stinking (I have industrial allergies) and the fact I learned the fabric sheets contain oil (which will make fusing difficult). Here is the link:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-82915-1.htm

As a postnote to those fabric sheets, I had to soak many t-shirts for two days and wash several times. To this date, there are shirts that the fusing is not sticking as I would like. Therefore, this takes me back to my quilting questions. I really do not want much space left between lines of quilting because fusing on back may be loose.

You can sew through the emblems, but the needle holes may not ever go away. That might allow the batting to show through too.

Thank you for sharing this process with us, a picture IS worth a thousand words :D:D:D

Very good start!
I want to make my granddaugher one! She is in 7th grade and already been in 2 sports! Told her to save them and will make her one when se graduates!

I have collected over 75 hockey t-shirts from when my kids used to play...now i just have to find time to make them into a quilt...