T-shirt quilt top done on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 450 of Free Motion Mavericks. I've been very busy putting together my niece's t-shirt quilt top and it's now done - only 4 days after my September One Monthly Goal. I'd forgotten how huge a queen size quilt is! 

Quilt top finished

Unfortunately when I took this photo this morning, I only had one helper to keep the quilt up. You'll get a better look once it's finished 😀.

Left half (sort of) of the t-shirt quilt

Right half of the t-shirt quilt

I finished piecing the t-shirts on the weekend. When I measured the width of the quilt, it was only 89", which is not very big for a queen sized quilt. I added borders on both sides. It's the teal Kona solid that I originally wanted to use for the sashing. Since the sashing is made up of 6 different Kona solids, including teal, adding borders in teal is fine. At this time the borders are 8 inches each, but I will probably trim them to 6". We'll see when I get there.

Here is how I delt with crests and badges. Since these are in the middle panel of the quilt, I measured out how big of an area I needed to fill to make the panel work with the others. 

For instance, in this first photo, I had an area of 10" x 28" to fill. I added sashing around the smaller crest, but decided in this instance to appliqué the "Lamontagne" crest onto a single piece. I used a zig-zag stitch and it worked really well. 

Creating a panel for these two crests

For the smaller crests, I used different Kona coloured sashing to fill in the 13" x 16" space.  

Different Kona solid colours in the panel of crests

This photo shows the panels stitched together to even out the centre panel so that it could be attached to both side panels.  

Panels fit well together

This last photo is the bottom of the right panel. It was the last section that I put together, so it took some creativity 😊 I had put sashing on the bottom 2 t-shirts but they were too wide. I was lucky that there wasn't much on the left side of the New York t-shirt, so I was able to trim it and re-attach the sashing. 

For the bright orange t-shirt, I originally wanted to just use the centre panel (with the number 14) but I still had space to fill, so I appliquéd it to the rest of the t-shirt. 

Finally, I had one t-shirt left and a wide narrow space, so I cut the t-shirt in half, stitched it side-by-side and then put a border around it to make it fit. Yeah! It was done!!!!

Creative handling of the bottom part of the panel

What I learned

• If you check out my last T-shirt quilt update post, you'll see that the layout changed a lot! It's interesting to see how the design evolves.
• There was a lot of creative learning happening. I'm glad that I figured out how large of an area I needed to fill (for the crests) and then worked around that. This is very different from my usual "lets put something together and see if it fits" strategy 😁 That's pretty much how I made the rest of the t-shirt quilt but I eventually had to take out my measuring tape and think things through!
• I used the rest of my teal Kona solid to make the two borders. It's a good thing that I decided to use various colours of Kona solids for the sashing because I never would have had enough fabric!
• I now have to sandwich this monster! This is my least favourite part of the process. I'll be doing it on my dining room table since I just can't sit or kneel comfortably on the floor to do this. 
• I am really happy that I bought a wide backing. It's quite retro and I love it! I'm not sure yet if it will be long enough, but I can always had pieced Kona solids to it if I have to.
• I'm not sure when my brother is going back to Denmark but I have until then to quilt it. I'm going to spend some time today figuring out how to quilt it - nothing fancy but I still need to have fun 😊  

Related links

• Update on T-shirt quilt at Free Motion Mavericks, September 13, 2023
• Secret FMQ and T-shirt Quilt Update on Free Motion Mavericks, September 21, 2023

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, including the October One Monthly Goal (OMG) with Anne-Marie of Stories from the Sewing Room. Why not check some of them out after you link up below? Sew & Tell, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Design Wall Monday, Needle & Thread Thursday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, Beauties Pageant, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts, 

The t-shirt quilt was featured on Sew & Tell. Thanks Melva!

Free Motion Mavericks

Donnalee has been working hard on finishing up her many runners for her guild's show. Here are some from her table runner factory!

From Donnalee's Table runners factory 😊

It's now your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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