T-shirt Quilt Part 2

Starting from where I left off last time, I had the t-shirts all cut out. From there, I then bought and ironed interfacing on the back of all the pieces made of t-shirt fabric. I already had black cotton in my fabric stash so I used that and cut strips out to go in between the t-shirt pieces. I then laid it all out and here is what I have:

Then Owen woke up, so he got to hang out in his pack-and-play!

And mostly shove his face up against the mesh and lick it. At least he was happy, right?

I decided to sew the pieces together in sections to make it so I wasn't working with one huge piece until the end. I ended up making 3 sections:

After the whole top was sewn together, I laid out the top on the back (I didn't use batting) and pinned it together to quilt it. I then rolled up the sides to start quilting from the center.

All quilted together!!

The last step was the binding. One of my best friends gave me the brilliant idea of using the back for the binding by just folding it to the front. I loved that idea because then the blanket would be soft on the edges as well as the back...so much better for snuggling with! I folded it to the front and pinned it to the raw edges were under. 

And here is my house just after I finished the quilt. Cleaning for the day was a little lacking.

But I stitched the edges and had a finished quilt!! The mess was worth it. 

I love it and I'm excited to be able to keep the memories these t-shirts hold in a blanket forever! So fun. 

~K.A.N.

T-Shirt Quilt Part 1

I have always wanted to make a t-shirt quilt and I have finally started! A few months ago, I gathered all of the shirts I wanted to use. I decided to make the quilt with only shirts from our time at Washington State University; mostly because I really like things to match. 

I got some awesome red fabric from a thrift store a couple of years ago and always knew I would use it for a blanket just because of how soft it is! It will be perfect for this one.

I had 9 shirts total and ended up just using 8. The shirt I decided not to use was made of a different fabric and I thought it would look better to not use it. 

The number of shirts of the different colors ended up working out perfectly: 3 gray, 2 white, 2 red, and 1 black (using the front and back to make 2 black panels). 

Starting with the first shirt, I cut up both sides, around the sleeves, and around the neck. This gave me a front and back panel. 

I then lined up my ruler as straight as possible with the front design and cut across the top. 

Centering the design with the edges to be cut, I cut it so the rectangle would be 14 inches across. For this shirt, the cougarr design is 8 inches across, which means I needed 3 inches on each side.

I then cut the bottom to make the finished rectangle 18 inches long. 

I then had 9 large rectangles that were each approximately 14 by 18 inches. I thought the quilt could use a little bit more of something, so I cut 6 rectangles 5 by 17. 

Here is what I have so far with the rectangles laid out on the back fabric (minus the white shirt that was cut above):

In between the t-shirt pieces will be plain black cotton. 

My next steps: 

1. Buy interfacing for the t-shirt fabric to help it hold shape better; iron on all rectangles

2. Cut black cotton

3. Sew top together

4. Quilt

5. Bind

I think it will be fairly simple and I'm excited to have it done!

Grocery bag and hot pan holders

A while ago we had an auction at my church for the young women to raise money for their camp. There were all kinds of items donated to the auction! There was a service part as well as a food part. The services ranged from photography to homemade items to house decor. The food was a plethora of delicious baked goods.

For the auction I made a simple grocery bag holder with two matching hot pan holders. I found the fabric at a thrift store and used it to make a grocery bag holder for my mother-in-law. I had plenty left for another grocery bag holder, then just enough for two hot pan holders. 

For the grocery bag holder, I followed this tutorial. 

I had previously made a grocery bag holder for myself. I love having it to hold all those extra bags!

For the hot pan holders, I really just made it up as I went. It is two pieces of the same fabric, cut to be a square with a layer of batting between. I quilted the pieces together and added the border and hanger.

I thought they turned out pretty well! 

~K.A.N.

Tie a Quilt

At church this week there were a few baby quilts that had been made for charity and just needed to be tied. I have never tied a quilt before, but I thought I would try. This was the quilt I picked. I love the fabric!

I already had everything I needed:  a yarn needle and matching yarn. I am currently away for the summer, so I didn't have many color options for yarn...I apologize if the white is hard to see. 

First step was to thread the needle. I did a double strand because the yarn I used was not very thick. I pulled the yarn through the eye of the needle just a few inches on one side. At first I used a very long piece of yarn to do several stitches, but found it easier later to just make the yarn to be just longer than the width of the quilt and do one row of stitches at a time. 

I then decided on the spacing of the ties. To be honest, I didn't measure; I just eye-balled it and used buttons to keep the spacing even. 

Using my yarn needle, I went down through the top layer, batting, and backing, over just slightly, and back up through all three layers. 

I pulled my yarn all the way through until there were just a few inches left on the right side of the stitch. Without cutting I moved to the next stitch (where the next button was placed) and did the same, pulling the yarn to fit the distance between without being too tight. This was repeated until I ran out of yarn. 

Above, I have done three full rows of stitches. As mentioned above, I later found it was easier for me to do one row at a time, but you can do as much as you would like.

Next, I cut the yarn between the stitches. This will leave you with yarn going in one side of the stitch and out the other. 

The last step is to tie and cut the yarn. I did a double knot to keep it nice and secure, then pulled it out and trimmed it to a length of just a couple inches off the quilt. 

On the front, you will have several little ties of yarn and on the back, there will be small dots of yarn.

And that's it! A finished tied baby quilt!

~K.A.N.

The Jean Quilt

This was by far my biggest, most frustrating, and most exciting project I have completed yet. This was also the first idea of my craft adventures...so what I consider to be 'the one that started it all'. 

I had the idea to make a jean quilt because I had a couple of pairs of jeans that just didn't fit right anymore, so why not recycle and make something out of them? After deciding on square sizes, the size of quilt I wanted and collecting several pairs of jeans, I started cutting...and I continued cutting...for a long time. Finally, I had enough squares. 

I was so excited, but also now realized what a project I had gotten myself into. Oh boy. The next step was to lay out the squares in an arrangement I liked. All I wanted was a good spread of the different shades and the small squares spread out relatively even.

This looked good to me! Now...to piece this monster together. I started with the small squares in groups of four: sew two together, sew two together, sew the two sets of two together to make a large square made up of four small squares. 

(first small square complete)

When those were complete, I began with the rows, sewing the vertical sides of the squares together. This gave me 14 rows total, which I sewed together. I then added belt buckles, labels and other decorative things to add some dimension. This finished the top of the quilt! At this point I felt like I had done so much and yet I had so much left to do!

With the top of the quilt complete, I was ready to put it together with the batting and backing. The batting was graciously bought by my grandma and the backing was the flat sheet from a sheet set. Buying the sheet set was cheaper than buying that much fabric and was also all in one piece. It also gave us a matching fitted sheet and two pillowcases! That is a steel. My wonderful husband helped unpick the edges of the sheet and I ironed those down. The backing, batting and top of the quilt were laid down flat and pinned all over to hold it together. 

Now, to quilt it. I had decided to just quilt in the ditch between all the squares, both directions. This was the hardest, most frustrating job of the entire quilt. The first time I tried was a complete fail and I was so frustrated that I didn't even want to do any more. I left the room. After a long time, Nathan came and found me to tell me that he had unpicked it for me (he is so good), it was going to be put away for that day, but as long as I relaxed, I would finish it. He was right. With enough time, some muscle (jean quilts are very heavy), and lots of patience, I finished the quilting. Using my new rotary set, I was able to give the edges a nice clean cut. 

The only step left was the binding. I used some navy blue cotton fabric that I already had and followed the steps given here to bind my quilt. Finally, finally, finally it was finished. 

Joy and relief flooded my whole body. I was so happy to be done and so excited about how it turned out! 

~K.A.N.