Quilt-As-You-Go T-Shirt Dresden Plate

So - this was fun ...

With some leftover T-Shirt fabric, I cut some Dresden Plate shapes ...

So that I could try my hand at a new way to quilt a Dresden Plate quilt block.

Nice thing about T-Shirt jersey cotton? The fact that the edges won't fray, so, no need to finish the outer and inner edges.

So, I got my rainbow of colors cut ...

Sewed the "plates" together ...

... and admired them ...

... amused that my middle daughter (who was also admiring them) happened to have a matching nail-color that day!

I made 5.

I made a couple of extra quarter-"plates", to try out some quilting ideas.

I quilted these practice ones onto some denim & batting. Might turn them into pot-holders, since my kitchen could use a few, and since they're kind of random and messy.

I chose a swirly design, and I was thrilled at how great it looks, but how easy it was!

I had fun quilting these ... onto some black cotton jersey fabric that used to be a Twin-Sized T-Shirt sheet.

When I was trying to figure out how to quilt all this stretchy (knit fabric) stuff together, my oldest daughter suggested that I cut the black background (and the batting) into squares, and quilt the 15-inch squares, instead of trying to quilt a big, stretchy 50-inch square.

I love how the little edges give this a bit of a 3-D effect ... they're not going to fray, and they are securely sewn on, but they're free to curl up a little.

The backs of these Dresdens look pretty neat, too ...

Love these!

So, now I've got 5 blocks with one Dresden Plate each ...

And I also quilted some plain black blocks to go in between ...

On the black, I quilted with variegated thread (of course!)

So, one of these days, I'm going to put all my Quilt-As-You-Go T-Shirt Dresden Plate blocks together into a little quilt ...

Stay tuned for more details, when I get some more finishing work done.

Random Catch-Up Blog Post

So, it's been a while since I've blogged! Apparently, I'm not one of those nice, consistent bloggers who plans "breaks", and lets you know ahead of time when a month-long blog-break is happening. Anyhoo. As usual, I'm always either working on a project or two, or dreaming up the next one (or three!)

When I've got bits of time to "sit around", I'm still hand-stitching my Vintage-Inspired English Paper Piecing, and making some progress on the white(ish) border.

I've also been cutting dozens of T-Shirts into T-Shirt Yarn. (I've done this before; see my T-Shirt Crafts label in the blog sidebar.) Sometimes I use the yarn to crochet (LOVE to make bags & baskets & rugs with this stuff!), and I'm selling some of the yarn on eBay, because I've found that other crafters often find it handy to buy their recycled T-Shirt Yarn "ready-made". 

  

Stitching letters into quilts is a fun and easy way to personalize a quilt. I've done a lot of regular, single-line-stitched cursive letters, which is fun. Another technique I've been trying is a little more involved, but has a great look. Here's an in-progress photo of a recent project (pink letter-quilting on white; blue lines are water-soluble marker):

I haven't given up on my Batik Double Wedding Ring Quilt ... Every once in a while, I pull it out and piece a bit more ... getting close to a (small) milestone on the piecing:

Before long, I'm planning to machine-quilt a Dresden Plate quilt top that my mom sent for me to quilt. It's vintage, and gorgeous, and a family heirloom. I figured it would be helpful to practice, since I've never quilted a Dresden Plate quilt, and since there are so many great options for custom-quilting a design like this. 

So, I made my first-ever Dresden Plate block, so I'd have something realistic to practice on. I haven't decided what quilting design to use, so loops and scallops worked as a fun start. That went well enough. I figure I can add this block to my gingham sampler quilt eventually.

Another thing I've been wanting to try is applique-style quilting, using cotton jersey fabric (from T-Shirts!), and the Dresden Plate idea made an appearance here, too. The non-fraying quality of jersey fabric helped me out here, and made the Dresden Plate construction super-easy.

Had a lot of fun quilting these. Surprisingly easy, too. 

So, anyway. Been busy. Summer is off to a great start.

It's possible that these pics will each turn into their own blog post, eventually ... maybe.

Two Little Quilts for Two Little Guys



Not long ago, I finished up these two little quilts.

I may have mentioned bits and pieces of these quilts in the past ... 

The one on the left showed up a few weeks ago when I posted about Playing with Orange Fabric.

 The one on the right was in progress a few months ago, and I blogged about it in a post called Another Shirt Quilt Project FMQ-QAYG-style.

These fun little quilts were gifts for my friend Christy's newest little sons.

I mentioned a few months ago (see this post) that my friend Christy would be adopting a little boy from Eastern Europe. As it turns out, God has allowed Christy and her husband to adopt TWO little boys!



So, of course, I wanted to make the little guys quilts to welcome them home.

These quilts are smallish sizes - The square one is 38" x 38", and the other one is a little narrower than that, and a little longer ... The boys are 1 and 3, but small for their ages, so I wanted quilts that would be little, but not babyish. 

Introducing my new favorite combo: Shirts and Sheets! (Perfect for Guy Quilts, if you ask me!)

The squares on this one are all cut from shirts; the beige sashing and binding was a sheet.

Putting together a Quilt-As-You-Go quilt was easier than I expected. (See more on "quilt-as-you-go" here and here and here.)

For one thing, quilting a 10½" square is SO much easier than quilting an 80" x 80" square! Because of this, I've been enjoying "the quilting" part of quilt-making a lot more lately.

For another thing, the method in this video works great for putting the pieces together.

And the orange fabric was a sheet (and so was the green on the binding & back of the orange quilt) , while the remaining triangles were all shirt fabrics.

  

I love the bright, happy look of the shirt-plaids & solids!

  

I though how fun it would be to take pictures of these quilts outside, on the clothesline.

It was windier than I thought it would be, so, not surprisingly, I ended up with a lot of this ...

... and this ... which made me laugh! I did a lot of waiting around for the wind to settle, so I could snap pics really quick before the wind picked back up!

The quilting details for the quilt-as-you-go squares were in this post.

For the triangles quilt, I decided to go with a spiral design, because I figured spirals would contrast nicely with the angular lines of the patchwork.

If you look closely at the middle spiral in the picture below, you'll see the "spiral" that's probably my favorite. Even though most of my spirals were tolerably round, and some of them were pretty near perfect, THIS one ... wasn't! I thought about taking it out and redoing ... But more and more, I realize that I'm quilting better and better. AND, more and more, I'm realizing that some things don't require stressed-out perfection. It's O.K.; it's unique. And it was made by a human, and not a robot. :-)

Speaking of favorites, I LOVE this puzzle-quilting on this block in the quilt-as-you-go quilt. Like I mentioned in other posts about this, the puzzle-quilting inspiration came from here.

Probably my very favorite block in the quilt-as-you-go quilt was this rocking-horse one, the last one I finished. Traced this little rocking-horse from a printable coloring page (I think it was this one) and added some details to make it work as a quilting design. Because the little guy getting this quilt happens to have a thing for rocking horses.

I finished off the little quilts with the boys' names ... stitching them in like the lettering I did at the end of this post and the end of this post.

Many congratulations to Christy and her family on the newest additions to their wonderful family!

The Latest Guy Quilt: NFL, Quilted with Footballs

This was fun:

Since my oldest son had a birthday recently, and since I hadn't made him a quilt in years, I needed to make a guy quilt.

When I had the idea to do something with NFL fabrics, I decided to check eBay for a deal on some team fabrics. I wasn't sure what I would find, but I figured the selection online would be pretty varied. 

Almost right away, I found a set of NFL fabrics on eBay -- precut 4" squares, two from each of the 32 NFL football teams. Perfect. Easy. (A little overpriced, maybe, but where else would I find all 32 fabrics in one place!?)

Pretty quickly, I decided what to do with 64 squares (+1 extra solid square) -- A basic Single Irish Chain layout. 

Simple. No frills. Guy quilt.

I added a border row above and below, made with shirt-cottons (solids, stripes, plaids) to add some length to make a nice-sized throw quilt. (It's about 55" x 68".)

The fabric combo turned out nice (brown cotton sheet fabric for the top, and something fuzzy-textured-warm for the backing). My favorite thing is how the quilting turned out.

Free-motion meander with FOOTBALLS quilted in! This was so fun, and surprisingly, not too complicated.

Maybe I'll take some more pics and do a picture tutorial on the FMQ footballs sometime. (I was surprised at how little I found online about how to quilt football designs into a quilt! I found a couple of ways that it works.)

Anyway. This was fun. And my son loves it. I'm happy about that.

Playing with Orange Fabric

Every now and then, I find great deals on quilt fabric in unusual places ... 

My kids are amused that sometimes, at the thrift store, when looking at clothing and linens, I don't see shirts and sheets; I see "FABRIC"!

I've mentioned in the past (in one of my all-time-favorite posts) that my "favorite fabric designers" aren't the usual ... and I've made some fun things out of shirts and sheets ... also known as "reclaimed textiles". (For more posts on the subject, see my sidebar labels for Dress Shirt Quilts and Recycled Crafts.)

The bright orange fabric in this post was a 100% cotton sheet, and all the colored fabrics are cut from 100% cotton dress-shirts. 

The nine-patches are still in a stack, awaiting whatever's next.

The triangles have become a little quilt, which I'll be blogging about sometime later on ...

I don't usually work with this much orange -- but so far, I'm liking this orange-plus-solids-and-plaids combo.

T-Shirt Baby Quilts

I've discovered that T-shirts make really soft, cozy quilts!

I mentioned a different T-shirt quilt a couple months ago (see post here).

I made two little quilts recently for my two newest nieces ... they're not sisters, but they were born just weeks apart, so I'm thinkin' they'll be good friends growing up.

I had fun with the quilting on these ... a regular free-motion meander, with little hearts here and there.

With my machine set up for free-motion quilting, I've discovered that it's remarkably easy to stitch in some lettering to personalize the quilt a bit.

I just draw the lettering on with my handy-dandy wash-out fabric marker, then stitch (more or less) on the lines, and then water-spray to wash out the marker. It's not perfect, but it works!

And I think it makes the quilts a little more personal.

Soft, cozy quilts for sweet little girls!