Showing posts with label upcycle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label upcycle. Show all posts

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Memory T-shirt Quilt



I had said I wouldn't do another t-shirt quilt unless it was a memory quilt and here I am doing a memory quilt for my cousin's granddaughter but I have to say that I am glad that I agreed to do it.  The colors of her tees have just come together so nicely.  I really am liking the blocks so far.   I had intended to try to make some dimensional blocks but I have changed my mind but may still do something in the sashing.













Friday, May 29, 2015

My Survivor and 1st T-Shirt Quilt

I am 2 years out of my chemo treatment now and my tests continue
to be good.  I am so grateful for all the prayers that have been sent up
on my behalf and I am thankful that God has given me the time here on 
earth to be with my family.  And grateful that he has used this to teach me.

He has taught me that I should put more trust in him.  And I need to trust
more in his word.

Matthew 6:26-34New King James Version (NKJV)

26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

So I just wanted to share this.

Christmas before last I went through my closet and cleaned out all of my t-shirts and decided to do my first t-shirt quilt.  A couple of them were gathered from CARTI and from relay for life that my sister-n-law was involved with in our area.  
 I had the purple and neon green material that I had bought some time ago just
because the colors popped and I just loved the green and purple together.  I used
a decorative stitch with purple thread.  And
when I went to putting it all together I think the colors just went so well with the tees that I had for my quilt and I just love how it turned out.
 So this is my survivor quilt and I have been sleeping
under it for several months now.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Bursting Heart and Angel Quilt Finished



A couple of pictures of the Bursting Heart and Angel Quilt.  This one without the binding.
And this one of the final  finished quilt.

Have a wonderful day!!!

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Lap Quilts Delivered


Two lap quilts made as gifts for friends...met one of my friends for dinner last night to deliver them.  The other friend doesn't know that it is coming...so it will be a nice surprise for her.







Monday, March 24, 2014

Another Try

Ok, so I decided one more try at the stars and I am a little more pleased with this set than the last but I have decided they really just aren't my thing...I will use them in a quilt but so far all of my recycled jeans/denim quilts have all been put together in a mod podge way so hopefully they won't stand out like a sore thumb.

This time I started with a 12 1/2-inch square and when I trimmed they were at 10-inches but one of the points I think is too close to the edge and I'm concerned my sashing with probably cover a bit of it when I go to put my block together.  This time I did not stack and slash but used some lines on my ruler that I normally don't use for angles and tried to line the edge of each block at the same place to try to get the cuts to run across each block at the same place.  The blocks did come out some better but I don't know...doing this block just feels a bit stressful to me and I don't like that feeling when I am quilting...to me that is my relaxing time...and I guess I don't like thinking quite that hard... :-)

Here are my blocks....





Saturday, March 22, 2014

Hearts and Stars, a Bit of a Fail and a Bit of a Save, Never give Up

I can't hardly believe I didn't do a post about my heart blocks...



They were a bit of a booger bear to get to center correctly.  I would start by centering the bottom of the heart and had all the seams cut and lined out before starting but as I worked up it would migrate to the right in the direction that I was sewing.

I had also been wanting to try a stack and slash block for a star using the denim.  I finally got to that this weekend but about half way through...I got that feeling...you know...that I've been there done that feeling...meaning that I was already starting to feel a bit of a fail with it and I'm not sure I will try this again.  I got the idea from jmday.com which has a excellent tutorial for the stack and slash star but thought I would put a denim twist on it thinking that the different shades would make the star.

So I started with 5 12-inch squares wanting to work toward a 10-inch square since that is usually what I do in my jean/denim quilts and I try to choose old jeans at different levels of fade.  That was my first mistake....I should have started with a 13-inch as I typically will do just a bit more than a 1/4-inch seam on denim because it will fray sometimes.  Also all of my blocks had a seam because when you a recycling jeans there typically is no place that you can get a solid 12-inch square without a seam running through it.  My first thought was to use that seam as the starting slash but decided against that because the contrast in one jean to the next is part of what would make the star pop.  And I decided to turn the seam for each block...so for the top block I had it at the top...the next it was to the right...then to the bottom and so forth for all 5 blocks so that as I slashed through each stack those seems would not be stacked on top of each other making it difficult to cut through (why I thought there would be any ease to cutting through a stack of 5 denim blocks only God knows).  And I take care to stack so that none that are anywhere near being at the same level of fade are not next to one another but I found this hard to do as my jeans seemed to be more like a only two levels of fade.




So here I am through my first slash...not too bad so far although I was having to saw with my rotary cutter even on this first cut...apparently I need a new blade.  But from the top section I pull the bottom piece to the top...with the idea that this would be that this would be the mix for each block.  Then disappointment this is where I noticed that the top and bottom block were close to the same level of fade (too close to the same color)...but I decided to trudge on and sewed all my block back to gather and used a decorative stitch of about the same color.  On looking back I am wondering if I should not have just used a white thread for a little more contrast.




The thread is blending with the material pretty good here.

I worked at trying to make sure that I got my seams lined up good with my next stack, slash and sew.




So far so good...one seam seemed to be off just a bit but not bad and I am ready to do my next stack and slash.  My cutter has gotten worse so I decided to resort to scissors and I have to pull each cut piece away just a little to be able to get my scissors where they needed to be.  Ugh!!!!



And I get the next seam sewn and I am wondering now why my point at the top of the star doesn't match with the point of the little piece that you can see at the top...but there is no extra fabric at the end of any of my seams so again...trudging on.


So I stack, slash, and sew my next seam. There should be a total of 5 stack and slash.

And finally the last stack and slash.

And I have cluse where I got off...see how this final point is off center. 



I think this is the only one where the points all seemed to center correctly on the very middle of the star.

But as you can see here none of them came out to the 10-inch square when I  was done with my trimming as I had set as my goal when I started.  So I will sew a sash up the short edges if necessary.  After all these are just for me and my family.  They will still make good usable quilts.