Friday, July 24, 2015

College Quilt Finish

I promised a t-shirt quilt to my niece for her high school graduation / birthday present.  She is a very detailed person so it had to be balanced just right and prefectly symmetrical which was a bit tricky with the varying sizes and colors.  I gave her a few sample layouts and she chose her favorite and then worked on the details.   I would have sewn the small sections together as one square but she wanted them separate - and it works just fine.

She picked the sashing and border/backing fabric and they work perfectly to separate yet join the various colors.  

All in all a successful finish, but also a reminder of why I don't really like this kind of quilt.   The quilting is always tough - quilt through the shirts or not, match each color or not.  And then the actually quilting because sewing through the t-shirts is not the same as sewing through regular fabric.  Then finishing.  With all the thread changes I spent more time sewing in the thread tails than all the rest of the project.   

But it is done!!!  And there was just enough fabric remaining to make a matching pillowcase   

Linking up with  Crazy Mom Quilts   and Confessions of a fabric addict  to show off finishes.

2 comments:

  1. I've made several t-shirt / memory quilts and each recipient has had VERY strong opinions on how they wanted it to look. I guess that's part of what makes them so personal (but often times very difficult to sew). Beautiful quilt, I'm sure she'll treasure it for years to come.

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  2. Tee shirts quilts are by nature very personal and that is part of the attraction for the recipient, I guess. It is good that you worked with your niece to get her ideas incorporated.
    Sadly, the few tee shirt quilts I have made have been memory quilts, made from clothing of someone who had died in an accident. The saddest were two quilts I made when my daughter's boyfriend died. I made a quilt for her and one for Geoffrey's Mum too. I had tee shirts, track pants, work shirts, a couple of silk ties, even satin boxers to use. They were very graphic but certainly told of his young life, cut short way too soon.

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