Photo quilts and Wall hangings

Just a whole bunch of photos of T-Shirt quilts

Click on Photo to see a larger view.

Oswego High School
Neuqua Valley High School
University of Illinois
Bowling Hall of Fame
Alpha Omicron Pi
Kaneville High
and many more.

Drama

Sports










50 years of bowling

Madrigals and years of church camp

A child remembered. For Brother........ For Sister


For Mom ..........



Saving her favorite tie-dyed t-shirt




Track Star ..............





Golfer ..




Future youth pastor





..... My first t-shirt quilt.

Progress on Maggie's t-shirt quilt

Today I put the backing, armour weft fusible interfacing, on the t-shirts. I cut the shirts about 1" larger than the finished size and fuse the interfacing on, using a pressing cloth.

After the interfacing is on, I cut the shirts to the size they need to be for the quilt. I place them on the design wall in approximately the place they will be in the quilt.

What was I thinking?

I recently took this quilt out to look at it and try to remember just what still needed to be done to finish it. The hearts are made in the same fashion as the frayed circles that I talked about earlier. The thing is heavily quilted and nearly finished so why did it get put away? Ahhh, now I remember, I had some crazy idea about a heart quilted into the design and the thread was too thick so I had to pick out all the stitches. It looks like I got the stipple quilting out but stopped at the second outline. I must have been pretty frustrated.

Well, now it is hard to remember the plan so I guess I'll just have to look at it for a while and figure something out. Lesson: go ahead and put the project away if you are too frustrated but maybe don't wait years before you go back to it.

Here is a bonus picture of Laila carrying a couple of purses around. She has a the makings of a purses fanatic!

An interesting new technique-Raggedy Reverse Applique

While I was sewing today, I was having trouble with the tension on my sewing machine so I went to visit my favorite sewing machine repairman, Joe. He is in South Elgin, check out his store at www.sewingunlimited.net. Well, I had the wrong size needle for the thread I was using...it has obviously been too long since I was in the sewing room!

I found a great book : Raggedy Reverse Applique by Kim Deneault, published by Krause Publications. Anyway, I have always liked the raggedy look and this looked like a technique that I could use in a t-shirt quilt. I decided to make one of the pillows in the book to get an idea of how the technique works. The first step is to trace a design on tracing paper, stack three pieces of fabric on top of each other and sew around the design. Once this is done, either one or two layers of fabric are cut out.

Slits are cut in the seams to make the fabric ravel when it is washed. I think it is an interesting look and I cant wait to figure out how to use it in a T-shirt quilt. Stay tuned!

Frayed circles

Starting this blog made me remember how much I love to make quilts. Once my class was over, I started T-shirt quilts for my two youngest daughters. In this post I will be showing how I make frayed circles, both girls want them in their quilts so I figure they are worth a look. This is an example of a quilt that I made a while ago that used frayed circles.

This is the design for Maggie's quilt. The background will be dark purple. I couldn't find as much as I needed but I had several dark purples in my stash so I will use those also. I have found that as long as the colors are very similar and there isn't a print that really stands out; it is actually more interesting with several different fabrics. As you can see in the design, I sew the quilt together in many small pieces.
I use a 2" grid for all of my T-shirt quilts. Because of this the circles would be a 4" square. Since I use a 1/4" seam and will be cutting the background square into quarters I will start with a 5" square. This square is folded into quarters and I press the folds. This is helpful when placing the circles on the background square.

To cut the circles I use acrylic templates from Creative Grids: Non-Slip Rotary Cutting Circles come in a package with 2 1/2" through 6 1/2" circles. These make the cutting much quicker and more accurate. For this project I will be using a variety of jewel tone fabrics. Since I have been doing this for awhile I used 78 different fabrics from my stash. I would say that if you need to purchase fabrics; you would want at least 4 of each color.

Once both sizes of circles have been cut I fold them into quarters and press the lightly also. These folds will be a guide for where to place the circles onto the background square. I like to place 2 pins on the large circle to hold it in place for sewing.

I use a very narrow zig zag stitch. I start and stop at the folds since these will be cut apart and sewn back together, the start will be hidden. I like to use a varigated rainbow colored thread since it will be seen this is an easy way to blend and much faster than changing thread for every color.

Once the large circles are sewn on; the fabric behind them needs to be removed or the piece will be too bulky. I have a pair of curved, blunt tipped applique scissors that work great. I think the most important thing is that they are blunt tipped so you don't have much of a risk of cutting the front of the circle.

Once the small circles are sewn on top of the large ones, I press them in stacks of 4 or 5 in preparation for cutting.







All the circles are sewn on the background squares.

Pressed and ready for cutting.

A wonderful tool that I have is called the Brooklyn Revolver, Made by "Come Quilt With Me" phone: 718-377-3652. The great thing about this is that you make the first cut and then just turn the revolver and make the second cut. It is so much faster and more accurate when I don't have to pick up the fabric and turn it.

I wait to cut out the extra fabric behind the small circle until they are cut apart.

In this quilt I will be using half circles so I will sew them together in sets of 2 in preparation for putting the quilt together. This is the design they will be in.