A Memorial T-Shirt Quilt

My daughter's friend Corina wanted a quilt made from her grandpa's shirts. When Corina dropped off the shirts, there were so many that I had to make two. The first one was made from dress shirts and was delivered in time to give as a gift before Thanksgiving. Right after Christmas I started on the second quilt from t-shirts and other knit shirts. There were even a few flannel shirts thrown in. 

Once it was finished, I looked at the stack of remaining fabric scraps and figured out how to make a pillow from one of the shirts. I used a 16" pillow form as a measurement to make the pillow cover. The buttons on the front became the opening to get the pillow form in. 

Leftover pieces from the dress shirts made a nice patchwork pillow cover, the cuffs were incorporated into the patchwork as well. I quilted the patchwork with some straight-line stitch-in-the-ditch quilting. 

Back in fall, Corina's daughter asked me if I could make her a baby doll quilt. I started it back in fall and sadly it never got finished. Then last week while cleaning up the sewing room, I came across it and finished it. I was happy to be able to complete it for her. 

I dropped everything off yesterday. Corina was happy with the extra surprises and glad to be able to gift the quilt and pillow to her grandma. 

Pencil Me In Quilt

This quilt has been sitting in my sewing room since October. Sadly, it fell victim to the holiday quilting and crafting rush but that's ok, there was no rush to finish it. I used half of a Tula Pink jelly roll to make it and the pattern can be found in Fons and Porter's Magazine. It measures 48' by 68.5" so it's lap size. 

I used a pantograph called Amica for the quilting.

This was a nice bonus project using leftovers. It will make a nice gift.

Ruxin's Pet Bed

My cat, Ruxin just loved the charity pet beds I made last month. When I got ready to deliver them, I struggled with taking the bed he claimed away from him. In fact, I delivered all of them except the one he claimed for himself.  

I decided I needed to make him one of his own. Instead of using donated fleece that was earmarked for charity projects I needed to buy my own to make a bed for him. I knew it would be a while before I took the time to go to the fabric store to buy fleece, it just wasn't a priority. Then one day I was cleaning out a cabinet in my sewing studio and I came across an unfinished quilt. It was just two pieces of fabric with batting in-between that was used to practice on my longarmer the day it was set up in my house. I decided it was perfect to cut up to make a pet bed. I didn't need to go fabric shopping after all. Yay!

I washed the piece to get all the sizing out since my cat would be sleeping on it. Then I cut it into two pieces and stitched them together to form the pillow. I stuffed the bed with leftover batting scraps and the leftover pieces from the quilt top. It was nice and soft and the perfect size for Ruxin. 

And I think he likes it. 

I had to sneak the charity pet bed away when Ruxin was off playing with my husband. I did have to vacuum all his pet hair off the fleece, he is such a hairy beast, lol. I got it delivered just in time for it to go with the rest of the pet beds.

January Project Plans

Happy new year! I've put away all my Christmas fabrics and I am working on a t-shirt quilt for a client today. The quilt top is done, but I need to get some backing fabric before I can quilt it on the longarmer. My plan is to pick up the fabric to finish it tomorrow while I'm working at the quilt shop. 

The design board is pretty empty except for a piece I finished on the embroidery machine. I want to turn it into an apron pocket.

I have a stack of quilt tops to longarm and I'm hoping to get a few of those completed this week. There's at least 4 Quilts for Kids quilt tops in the bunch that are long overdue. I'm also working on a list of craft fair projects to start on. I want to get a jump on those before the March craft fair date gets too close. 

Since it is the start of a new year I thought I would list some of my crafting and quilting goals for this year:

• Embroidery machine lessons
• Quilt listings on Etsy and Ebay
• Take a class on collage quilts
• Scroll saw craft projects
• Purge old fabrics
• Rearrange sewing studio

Here's to 2021!