Five Shadows

My little Monkey Business quilt top was featured over at Connie’s Freemotion by the River Linky Tuesday Blog! That put a smile on my face! Thank you Connie! I bought fabric to make a second Monkey Business quilt, but have to finish a few other things before starting a new quilt.

One of those other things was the t-shirt quilt. The shirts have been cut apart, fusible interfacing applied, blocks cut down to size, and sewn together. I have calculated out yardage for borders, back, and binding, which means a shopping trip is in my near future!

How do you make a t-shirt quilt you ask?

First step is to prepare the shirts. Cut in half –  up the sides separating front from back, and cut off the sleeves & neckband.

Then, using Pellon fusible interfacing P44F, fuse the interfacing to the inside of the t-shirt. Cut Pellon a bit larger than desired finish block size to give wiggle room for squaring up the motif on the t-shirt.

To fuse the Pellon to the shirts, I use a hot dry iron and a wet scrap of muslin large enough to cover the t-shirt. On my ironing board, I layer a teflon craft sheet, t-shirt face down, the Pellon glue side down on shirt, top with the wet muslin. Then press with the hot iron to adhere the Pellon to the shirt. The Pellon gives stability to the knit t-shirt fabric making it easier to sew seams. A walking foot or dual feed foot help with piecing.

Next, trim the shirt down to the desired size.

My customer had predetermined the layout she wanted. We talked about settings and she liked the idea of the shirts sewn right next to each other without any sashing or piecing. I’m used to a little creative play with piecing and sashing, but I think this layout is looking nice. The plan for this quilt is for t-shirts to cover the top of a queen size mattress with borders draping over the sides of the mattress.

My next project was the paper pieced blocks from Christa Quilts. I played with several layouts and decided on a setting that I think is very modern. The quilt is going to a little girl who loves pink. I have a cute pink bird print by Valori Wells “Mamma Birds” for the back, the binding will be a bright pink.

I ordered a bolt of white Warm N Natural batting, when it arrives, the monkey quilt and paper pieced quilt will be first up for some free motion and walking foot quilting.

I’m wondering, have you ever made a t-shirt quilt? What about paper piecing? Do you have a favorite hint for either, making t-shrit quilts or paper piecing? I’d love to hear!

I’m linking to Linky Tuesday, go check Connie’s linky party where over 40 some crafters link up. It’s fun to see what other quilters and crafters are working on week to week. I’m also linking up to To-Do Tuesday with Christine of Stitch All The Things. The purpose of her linky party is motivation! List what you plan on working on Tuesday to Tuesday, then the next week weigh in on how well you accomplished your list! I like that I have a list to refer back to each week. And again, it is fun to see everyones creativity.

This week’s To-Do list:  Buy fabrics for borders, back, & binding for t-shirt quilt.  Sandwich baby quilts if batting arrives. Work on a pumpkin table runner. Then I can start the next monkey quilt!

 

 

Tags: Linky Tuesday, To-Do Tuesday

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015 at 23:28 and is filed under Quilting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.