Wait For It

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well, someone sure likes it

so much so, he won't get off of it!

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Dreaded T-Shirt Quilt

I finally finished it.  After a ton of time and cutting up a dozen of my t-shirts, I have finally finished the quilt (in fact it's on my lap right now) and- wait for it-- I hate it.  Like HATE it.  I can't believe I ruined t-shirts and spent so much time making a quilt that I can't stand.  Evidently, despite the fact of having been sewing for 11 years, I can't sew in a straight line.  Also, t-shirts are the devil.  They are impossible to work with even when double interfaced.  I don't even want to post photos of it.  It will- but not till later in the week because I need to take them and it's dark now.  What.  A.  Bummer.

T-Shirt Quilt Top

I finally finished the top of the quilt.  I'm hoping to get it finished ASAP because I don't have any sort of throw in my apartment.  One of these days I'll make a perfect quilt.  This, obviously, is not it.

I still need to work on the back.  It's going to have some more bits of t-shirts that I either didn't have room for on the front or I found after all the front t-shirts were cut.  Not sure how I'm going to lay them out on the back, but I have room to do it now!  It's amazing how much easier this is when you have the room to lay things out!!

Well, It's A Start

I haven't forgotten about blog, I promise.  On Saturday I moved to Ohio for the fall.  Now I have a bit of time to quilt again!  I started piecing together the dreaded t-shirt quilt.  I need to get a little more interfacing (that'll happen tomorrow).  Here's what I've pieced so far.  I had to recut a lot of the rectangles because of the stupid knit jersey.  Well, lesson learned...

Brown Bag Quilt

So, I'm doing my first interactive quilt (I'm not sure interactive is the right word...), but I've sent a little box of fabric off and have received a box for the Brown Bag Quilt Contest.  I wasn't sure that I would get it in time before I head to the O-H, so I had it sent to my parents' house.  My mom opened the package, and I'm really excited to get my hands on it and come up with a concept.

Here's what I sent out, some of it was in the stash that Em gave me when she cleaned out her old sewing room (now baby room) and some was from the infamous box of fabric my mom sent me.  I think it could make something fun, I hope my Brown Bag partner enjoys it.

I haven't been writing too much lately because I've been super busy.  I had an entire play to design (I have all the rough sketches done and approved!) and now I'm cleaning out my apartment.  Which doesn't seem time consuming until I tell you that one of my closets looked like it could have been on an episode of Hoarders.  It is fully functioning now.  (Not to mention that it's TV premiere week, so I've had a lot of watching/writing to do for my other blog.  ha!)  I hope to work on my t-shirt quilt a little bit before I head out next weekend, but I'm not confident that will happen.  I am bringing a lot of quilting stuff with me, so I will continue to quilt during my Ohio excursion.

A Quilter's Requirement?

I feel like it's a requirement as a quilter to do at least one t-shirt quilt in your "career."  This is pretty perfect for me too; my whole life my mother has been telling me to get rid of my t-shirts.  Many of my t-shirts (much like my baby blanket) are worn out and were loved for a few too many years.  It turns out that once I start making stuff for myself I can't stop-- plus, I'm an Aries and we are really good at starting new projects, but very bad at finishing them...

I wasn't really sure how to go about making a t-shirt quilt for myself for many reasons.  First off, I don't have enough of any particular type of t-shirt to do a full quilt out of one type (I am very close with gymnastics t-shirts, but some of my oldest have mysteriously disappeared and there are some that I still wear to the gym).  Also, it would be hard to do the same sized squares for each t-shirts because they range in size from a kid's medium to a men's XL.

I decided to do a little online research to see some of the quilts that others had done, and I came across this pattern of sorts.

It is definitely too big for what I want 1) I want a lap quilt, not something you could put on a king sized bed and 2) I don't have the many t-shirts that I'm willing to cut up, so I printed it out and cut and taped it until I thought that it looked good and doable.

I have begun to cut the t-shirts, which is proving quite hard.  I hate squares to begin with, but with no salvage and with 15 year old jersey knits, some of them look a little wonky.  I'm going to have to get some interfacing if I actually ever want to finish it.  An other problem that I am encountering is that many of these t-shirts were retired because they were either so worn out that they have holes in them or I spilled something and stained them, or I used them in grad school as painting shirts.  For these reasons, cutting them is even trickier.  Obviously, I cannot have any holes in the quilt and I'm trying to keep it so there is also no paint, or food or hair dye stains.  I'm clumsy.

On a side note, does anyone know if you can recycle cotton?  I don't want to throw of the fabric that I cut off of the t-shirts and I can't imagine choosing to work with jersey.

72nd Street Subway

I want to do this.

And use this photo as inspiration- maybe this is too literal to be inspiration, but I don't think so.  (I had this idea a few months ago, but this might actually motivate me to do it.)

this is the wall of the 1/2/3 subway station at 72nd Street in Manhattan.  I stare at it a lot.  One day I decided it would make a great quilt.

completely off topic, but a nice story for today