Finally finished a tee shirt quilt...#1piecemaker, please read
12-29-2007, 11:58 AM
#21
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Middle Tennessee
Posts: 271
Thanks again everyone. I have a new challenge....WHAT to do with 16 perfectly good tee shirts except for the 17 in. square hole in the back and 7 in. square hole in the front..........I have a lot of ideas.......BUT your suggestions are welcome. Right now I have ideas of how to use every last shred of them, but have some other things I want to do first.
To Joan, DD is adapting wonderfully to her new home, even though it has been -30F and snows almost every day and she typically hates cold weather. She bought a goose down coat and long johns before she left here and snow boots there, ( tried the boots on in the snow in the outdoor bazaar) SO she says only her face gets cold. She even sweats walking through all that snow and it's very warm in the apartment. They have radiator heat controlled by the city...city turns it on in Oct. or Nov. and off in Mar. or Apr.
I bought her one pr. of socks from National Geographic catalog knitted from Alpaca and copper. The copper ( which you can neither see nor feel) reflects the body heat and she says they are extremely warm.
To Joan, DD is adapting wonderfully to her new home, even though it has been -30F and snows almost every day and she typically hates cold weather. She bought a goose down coat and long johns before she left here and snow boots there, ( tried the boots on in the snow in the outdoor bazaar) SO she says only her face gets cold. She even sweats walking through all that snow and it's very warm in the apartment. They have radiator heat controlled by the city...city turns it on in Oct. or Nov. and off in Mar. or Apr.
I bought her one pr. of socks from National Geographic catalog knitted from Alpaca and copper. The copper ( which you can neither see nor feel) reflects the body heat and she says they are extremely warm.
12-29-2007, 12:06 PM
#22
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Middle Tennessee
Posts: 271
henryparris76.........Can I call you HP? I've been looking at your projects and they're great either for a beginner or old pro. Loved the hanky project.
I read a lot on here and learn a lot. I don't write a comment to everything I read, ( I'd never get off the computer if I did ) but I have learned a lot from just reading what everyone is making and "how" they are doing it. I LUV creative people.
I read a lot on here and learn a lot. I don't write a comment to everything I read, ( I'd never get off the computer if I did ) but I have learned a lot from just reading what everyone is making and "how" they are doing it. I LUV creative people.
12-29-2007, 12:12 PM
#23
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Middle Tennessee
Posts: 271
Andi.......Dad is doing better. He doesn't cry everyday now...that I see. Read a lot and plan how you're going to do a tee shirt quilt. It is quite different from sewing woven fabric. I procrastinated, read on here and on other sites for a few months before I cut that first logo. I thought I had it all in my mind, but I changed plans twice even after I started it. Nothing is set in stone in quilting.
04-04-2009, 04:55 PM
#25
Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 56
Just looking through archived pictures and admired your t=shirt quilt. You did a marvelous job with t-shirts which are notorious for stretching and having no consistency to the fabric. Love your quilt, and now especially enjoy the story of your daughter, who seems to be an angel on earth. I so, like many others do, admire those people who serve their lives for a greater purpose. Best wishes to you and your family.
04-04-2009, 07:22 PM
#27
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: SW Iowa
Posts: 32,855
Oh honey, it is beautiful. I made one for my daughter. ( I didn't even want her to join the sorority ) She loves it and shows it to anyone who comes over. I call it "the quilt from H***". The most important thing is she loves it. Yours is great.
04-05-2009, 06:50 AM
#29
Super Member
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Central Washington State
Posts: 5,997
You have done a fine job on your tshirt quilt!
I have found that I am the only one who knows where the weaknesses are in my quilts. Everyone else thinks they are perfect, so you be easier on yourself.
Improving something is always an option, but good work is good work and you need to give yourself credit for having done what looks to me to be a very good job indeed!
Next time <g>
your frustration may have come from the iron on batting, as you probably already know. A lightweight fusible interfacing would probably help you not have so many variables. And, for any considering using either product for the stabilizer on the tshirt fabric, always remember that interfacing, batting, has a give to it. By making sure that the "stretch" or "give" is always going the same direction, the quilt will hang differently.
Although, I still think your quilt is just great!
I have found that I am the only one who knows where the weaknesses are in my quilts. Everyone else thinks they are perfect, so you be easier on yourself.
Improving something is always an option, but good work is good work and you need to give yourself credit for having done what looks to me to be a very good job indeed!
Next time <g>
your frustration may have come from the iron on batting, as you probably already know. A lightweight fusible interfacing would probably help you not have so many variables. And, for any considering using either product for the stabilizer on the tshirt fabric, always remember that interfacing, batting, has a give to it. By making sure that the "stretch" or "give" is always going the same direction, the quilt will hang differently.
Although, I still think your quilt is just great!
05-16-2009, 06:58 PM
#30
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Middle Tennessee
Posts: 271
WOW! I didn't realize I had gotten the latest comments. We've been gone a month....was on 4 continents in a month...North America (of course), Europe, Africa and Asia.
Met our daughter in Barcelona in early April and went on a 2 wk. Mediterranean cruise from there calling at ports in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Malta. Was in Rome for Easter Sunday and stood in a crowd of hundreds of thousands in front of St. Peter's Basilica to hear Easter Services and the Pope came out on the balcony to bless the crowd.
It was the first time to Egypt. We stayed in port overnight and had 2 full days giving us plenty of time to see the pyramids and the sphinx and take a dinner cruise on the Nile, visit the mosque of Mohammed Ali and watch a paper-making demonstration at the Papyrus Institute plus tour the cities of Cairo and Alexandria. Just glad the weather was mild...I was afraid it would already be really hot in the desert.
Barcelona was one of my husband's favorite ports when he was in the Navy during the Korean war, so we stayed 3 nights there altogether. Loved walking the Las Ramblas.
After the cruise, we went to Kazakhstan. I don't think I'm supposed to say where she's serving, but I don't know why. Everyone was so nice. We had a great time. We visited the orphanage. I had been sending beads and she took them one Sunday. I had expected they would have fun with them, but never dreamed of the intricate jewelry designs they made. More than a dozen of the teenage girls got into the floor and started turning out earrings, broaches, necklaces and bracelets as fast as they could. I was truly impressed.
We visited a lot of historic things like the gulags where Stalin sent political prisoners and the mass graves. I went with Victoria to her Russian classes and to the English class she teaches at the halfway house. That's where some of the orphans live after they have to leave the orphanage after 9th grade. Some aren't so fortunate and are just let go to fend for themselves. All of these kids are so talented, but there are very few facilities to help them after they have to leave the orphanage. Just breaks my heart.
Anyway, I saw a treadle machine at the halfway house. One of the girls who is 16, wants to be a fashion designer. She sews on the machine. Victoria said one night she was making a beaded costume for one of the other girls who was in a dance recital. She also crochets. The dream of all of them is to come to the United States. And Victoria's desire is to stay there. Go figure.
I learn more if I listen to her answers to other people's questions. Someone asked her if she would be coming back to the states after her 5 yrs. are up and she said she hoped to be able to stay there. The kids depend on her now. She said they were very needy and clingy when she first arrived, but now they know they can depend on her so they're becoming more self-sufficient and she doesn't want to leave them.
The ones who aren't lucky enough to get in a halfway house or trade school or aren't taken in by a family member, wind up on the streets. Aprox. 10% commit suicide the first year and the rest become prostitutes or drug dealers to survive.
We took an overnight train to Almaty in the far south near the China and Kyrgyzstan borders. We stayed in a duplex on the grounds of "Teen Challenge", a rehab center for young males. They had also taken in some younger male kids that were living on the streets. The manager said there are some addicts as young as 8 yrs. old and some prostitutes as young as 10.
The manager drove us around for a tour of the city and a trip into the Tein Shan Mtns. where the apple trees grow wild and they were in full bloom, as well as the wild tulips. There's a very good book about this country called "Apples Are From Kazakhstan" by Christopher Robbins.
He also took us to his favorite Uighur restaurant. He said they weren't supposed to open for another hour, but he told us to wait in the jeep while he talked to them. He came back and told us to come on in. I guess they opened up just for us, because we were the oonly ones there for an hour. We ate with chopsticks and drank green tea with the meal. He is a descendant of the Uighur tribe of China.
There are actually several tourists in Almaty, but it's not a touristy city. It is like a different country from Karaganda (where Victoria lives), though. It's green and has character and of course, the mountains. It has a population of 2 million according to our driver.
She lives in a city of 1/2 a million, but it's on the steppe....nothing to break the wind...it's in southern Siberia. It's very much like the plains in the US. Their only trees are planted in the city, but there aren't any outside of town.
It snowed twice after we arrived, but the trees & lilacs were sprouting buds by the time we left. The streets are one pothole after the other. The temps are sometimes 45 below zero F. And the summers are often over 100 F. She has moved into an apartment alone now and it's one of the very few that has A/C. The other 2 she has lived in did not.
I'll put some pictures on here later if anyone is interested. It takes a long time for them to upload, so they may be few and far between.
Met our daughter in Barcelona in early April and went on a 2 wk. Mediterranean cruise from there calling at ports in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Malta. Was in Rome for Easter Sunday and stood in a crowd of hundreds of thousands in front of St. Peter's Basilica to hear Easter Services and the Pope came out on the balcony to bless the crowd.
It was the first time to Egypt. We stayed in port overnight and had 2 full days giving us plenty of time to see the pyramids and the sphinx and take a dinner cruise on the Nile, visit the mosque of Mohammed Ali and watch a paper-making demonstration at the Papyrus Institute plus tour the cities of Cairo and Alexandria. Just glad the weather was mild...I was afraid it would already be really hot in the desert.
Barcelona was one of my husband's favorite ports when he was in the Navy during the Korean war, so we stayed 3 nights there altogether. Loved walking the Las Ramblas.
After the cruise, we went to Kazakhstan. I don't think I'm supposed to say where she's serving, but I don't know why. Everyone was so nice. We had a great time. We visited the orphanage. I had been sending beads and she took them one Sunday. I had expected they would have fun with them, but never dreamed of the intricate jewelry designs they made. More than a dozen of the teenage girls got into the floor and started turning out earrings, broaches, necklaces and bracelets as fast as they could. I was truly impressed.
We visited a lot of historic things like the gulags where Stalin sent political prisoners and the mass graves. I went with Victoria to her Russian classes and to the English class she teaches at the halfway house. That's where some of the orphans live after they have to leave the orphanage after 9th grade. Some aren't so fortunate and are just let go to fend for themselves. All of these kids are so talented, but there are very few facilities to help them after they have to leave the orphanage. Just breaks my heart.
Anyway, I saw a treadle machine at the halfway house. One of the girls who is 16, wants to be a fashion designer. She sews on the machine. Victoria said one night she was making a beaded costume for one of the other girls who was in a dance recital. She also crochets. The dream of all of them is to come to the United States. And Victoria's desire is to stay there. Go figure.
I learn more if I listen to her answers to other people's questions. Someone asked her if she would be coming back to the states after her 5 yrs. are up and she said she hoped to be able to stay there. The kids depend on her now. She said they were very needy and clingy when she first arrived, but now they know they can depend on her so they're becoming more self-sufficient and she doesn't want to leave them.
The ones who aren't lucky enough to get in a halfway house or trade school or aren't taken in by a family member, wind up on the streets. Aprox. 10% commit suicide the first year and the rest become prostitutes or drug dealers to survive.
We took an overnight train to Almaty in the far south near the China and Kyrgyzstan borders. We stayed in a duplex on the grounds of "Teen Challenge", a rehab center for young males. They had also taken in some younger male kids that were living on the streets. The manager said there are some addicts as young as 8 yrs. old and some prostitutes as young as 10.
The manager drove us around for a tour of the city and a trip into the Tein Shan Mtns. where the apple trees grow wild and they were in full bloom, as well as the wild tulips. There's a very good book about this country called "Apples Are From Kazakhstan" by Christopher Robbins.
He also took us to his favorite Uighur restaurant. He said they weren't supposed to open for another hour, but he told us to wait in the jeep while he talked to them. He came back and told us to come on in. I guess they opened up just for us, because we were the oonly ones there for an hour. We ate with chopsticks and drank green tea with the meal. He is a descendant of the Uighur tribe of China.
There are actually several tourists in Almaty, but it's not a touristy city. It is like a different country from Karaganda (where Victoria lives), though. It's green and has character and of course, the mountains. It has a population of 2 million according to our driver.
She lives in a city of 1/2 a million, but it's on the steppe....nothing to break the wind...it's in southern Siberia. It's very much like the plains in the US. Their only trees are planted in the city, but there aren't any outside of town.
It snowed twice after we arrived, but the trees & lilacs were sprouting buds by the time we left. The streets are one pothole after the other. The temps are sometimes 45 below zero F. And the summers are often over 100 F. She has moved into an apartment alone now and it's one of the very few that has A/C. The other 2 she has lived in did not.
I'll put some pictures on here later if anyone is interested. It takes a long time for them to upload, so they may be few and far between.
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