Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Update on T-shirt quilt at Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 447 of Free Motion Mavericks. I've started putting together the t-shirt quilt. After doing all of the prep work, I'm finally having fun putting these t-shirts together. A couple more weeks and there'll be some free motion quilting (FMQ) happening. 😊

4 T-shirt blocks made

It's been a slow start. In May, I went through all of the t-shirts and started cutting. My May and June One Monthly Goals (OMG) were to have the t-shirts cut and the fusible interfacing ironed to the back. That didn't happen until a few days ago.

Anna's Quilt - blocks 1 to 4

On the weekend, I added the interfacing to all of the t-shirts. It was a long and tedious job, but I was well organised (see What I learned), so it went quite smoothly. This morning, I decided that it was the day!!! No more procrastination. 😁

Anna's t-shirts

T-shirts getting prepped

This spring, I bought some dark teal Kona solid to use for the quilt. This morning, as I lay the t-shirts down on the fabric, I realised that it wasn't a great colour choice. I went through my Kona stash and found quite a few darker colours that would be much better suited. The Kona fabric used will depend on the t-shirt's colour. I don't have a lot of some colours, but I had enough of the dark pink for my first two blocks.

First block - a signed t-shirt and
the sleeve with the team name

Next I made the second dark pink block. This t-shirt includes the store's logo in the bottom sashing. I used a brown Kona for the next block - it matches the background in the decal.

Second and third block -
with different coloured sashing

This fourth block was interesting. I had to cut around the sleeves, so I ended up adding some fabric in the top corners. They're not the same but it looks fine. The front of the t-shirt in at the bottom and then the shoulder patches are attached next to that. I did forget to add sashing to the front piece at the bottom, so I'll have to figure that out when I attach the t-shirts together.

Fourth block includes the front,
back and sleeve patches.

With 4 t-shirts block done, I have 9 more trimmed blocks to add borders to. Most of these are very straight forward. After that, I have 10 more t-shirts that I could trim down if I need to make them fit with the others. This is where I'll have to figure out the layout of the quilt. I'll be doing these last and I can add borders/sashing as required to make things fit.

All of these will be done by the end of September, so in 17 days. That means an average of 2 blocks per day with a week or so to put everything together. When broken down, it seems quite reasonable. 😓

What I learned

I really don't like prepping anything, but I knew that already 😁
For the fusible interfacing, I bought a package of Stabili-tee from Connecting Threads. The package contains a 60" x 72" piece of fusible interfacing. This will probably be enough, although I do have some other t-shirt stabilizer from my previous projects. This product is wonderful and I highly recommend it.
To make the prepping of the t-shirts a little easier, I first cut all of the t-shirts and figured out what to use on the quilt.
After cutting a few of the t-shirts, I figured out that I might want to keep more fabric on the t-shirt and cut away any excess later. It's so hard to tell if I'll have enough t-shirts for a queen sized quilt.
Once the t-shirts were roughly cut with scissors, I went back with my rotary cutter and evened everything out.
When I started adding the fusible interfacing, I cut a couple of pieces of interfacing and then ironed them on. This proved to be rather inefficient.
I decided to cut all of the interfacing to roughly the size of the t-shirts and then lay the t-shirt and interfacing aside in a pile.
This weekend I ironed all of the interfacing to the t-shirts in a few very sweaty sessions. Rough but finally done!
I've decided to use a variety of Kona solids for a 2" sashing.
I'll have to decide what to do when I start piecing them together, but for now, I'm concentrating on the t-shirts that can't be trimmed further. They'll get an all-round border that can always be trimmed down. I have 9 more of those to do.
After these, there are 10 more t-shirts that can be trimmed, as well as a few odd and ends. I'll prepare these as I figure out the layout.

Free Motion Mavericks

Melva worked on a couple of pieces. The first one is a cover for her husband's table and was quilted with diamond grids. The second one is the beginning of a feather.