CS
93. Sew a Quilt
Finished January 9, 2014
This project took me almost 2 years to complete! But for a number of reasons:
1) Because I had almost zero sewing experience before this project (minus a sewing project I did in 4-H when I was about 12....I made my then 4 year old brother an absolutely adorable little outfit. But that was the entire extent of my sewing experience). It had been a decade since that last time I had sewn anything.
2) I had to take copious amounts of time out of this project. 3 months for BOLC, 2 months for working in Chicago and another 5 going on my mission trip in Europe. So I spent a total of about 10 months actually working on this quilt.
Now I know I probably should have taken many more pictures of the actual process of making this montrous project.......but I didn't...sue me.
Thank goodness for my mom! No she's not a super sewer or a quilter.....but she knows more than what I did...or any of my friends for that matter. I didn't even have a plan before I graduated...HA! I told my mom what I wanted...which was a comclomeration of the shirts in no specific order....like a collage of sorts. She didn't think it was possible or that I could do it. WELL! I wanted to show HER! So it took a good long time, but I figured out the size, dimensions, layout, and overall design of the quilt. It's a queen sized quilt if you wanted to know. I learned I needed interfacing for the back of the shirts to strengthen them. I ironed it on the back of all the shirts then RE-cut them after properly measuring them to the correct dimensions. I picked the fabric (fun). Then I finally began to sew. And sew. And rip out what I just sewed. And re-sew. It was exhausting. My mom came down to help with some of the logistics and to teach me some basic sewing. But it was all my work.
There were a few reasons for starting this quilt. 1) I had it on my bucket list for some time at that point. 2) I had a TONNNN of extra T-shirts. They all held memories but I didn't want to wear them all anymore. 3) I had recently broken up with my boyfriend at that time and needed an extra project to preoccupy my time (Because I couldn't depend on school work to do that obviously!).
So not knowing what I was doing, I took a scissors to my shirts and just started cutting! .....and then I was stuck....how the hell do you do this?
I finally got all the patch work done. I added the boarder around the sides. Made the back (which was easier than the front just because there was fewer pieces....but it was still time consuming). Then the middle. I learned the fluff in the middle is called batting. If you look at it in the store - it all looks so thin! Even the thick stuff.....so I double layered it....and now I have a rather thick, fully winter blanket. So I learned that what looks thin might not be in reality - haha. The lower picture you see there is how my mother and I orchestrated the second to last step. The binding. It took forever to figure out how we would do it - we took thick thread and tied the 3 pieces of the quilt together at stragetic points throughout. Last step: sew the front and back together at the very edge.
If you would like further detail or pictures of this process. Contact me and I'll put them up!