Friday, March 24, 2017

Can I Get A Whoop Whoop? Graduation's Coming...

Hi, all!

Wow!  Can you believe that it's Friday again?  Where did the week go? But now that it's here, you know what it's time for - time to get our whoop whoop on!  Are you ready?  Let's get started!!

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I am very very happy to say that I have now made a puzzle-style t-shirt quilt!  Here's where it started...


I laid the shirt pieces out on the floor in the little office off my sewing room - fortunately it wasn't in use and I could lay it out and leave it there as I worked to assemble it.


Then I pieced together the blocks across the top of the quilt, building it to the width needed for this quilt.


The next step was to establish the length of the quilt.  As you can see, I pieced together the left side, adding to or trimming blocks as needed to make it the proper length.

This is a time-consuming project - if you decide to take one on as a commission project, I would suggest you allow a good amount of time for piecing the blocks.  I exceeded the time I expected to spend on it by a good bit, although part of that was learning curve, since this was my first.



But I'm so happy with the result!


This is a fun, bright, colorful quilt...


...with blocks that span this girl's whole school career!


I used a gray Connecting Threads solid for the backing and binding - it's the recipient's favorite color!


Cross-hatch straight line quilting in Glide Battleship crosses all the blocks.  The quilting lines are 5" apart.


I'm happy to have this under my belt and in my repertoire - I'm not sure I'll make many more because of the time involved and the cost to the customer, but it was a great learning experience!

So - - - can I get a whoop whoop??

Oh - and one more thing I'm whooping about - we currently have 163 people signed up for Hands2Help!!  If you are thinking about joining in, there's still plenty of time - your finished quilts are due by early June - so sign up!  There are giveaways at the end for the folks who make and donate quilts!!

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And now it's your turn!

What's got you whooping it up this week?


What's making you do a little happy dance?

Share - we want to dance right along with you - 
And it's always more fun to dance with friends!

The party will stay open until Sunday midnight.

Hope to see you there!!

Hugs!

Sarah



19 comments:

  1. We have given up doing any more T-shirt quilts on commission. Like you, they are just very time expansive, costly, and can be a pain to quilt.

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  2. what a great quilt that will bring back so many memories for the owner with all those t-shirts

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  3. You made a stunning quilt. Unfortunately people don't always understand the time it takes to make one, and the costs involved, wether you use t-shirts or quilting fabric, plus stuff like the wadding and thread. The recipient of this one will be thrilled with it.

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  4. I've done a t-shirt puzzle quilt and, yes, it takes time to work on the layout. Once that part is done, the rest comes together pretty quickly. This one is very nice! Wendy at piecefulthoughts@gmail.com

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  5. It looks great. I have made several that style too and it gets faster with practice. How do you determine what to charge for these? An hourly rate?

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  6. Sarah, that's one of the best-looking T-shirt quilts I've ever seen. You did a great job on it and I'm sure the girl it belongs to is thrilled! Did you quilt it on a long arm or on a domestic machine, and did you use regular quilting cotton for the solid fabrics that you combined with the T-shirt knits?

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  7. Sarah, those are great looking t-shirt quilts! Love them when they are puzzle-like, as there is so much more interest than just same sized squares. I'll be posting about some soon, as I just received a commission for six by Christmas. Should be plenty of time!

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  8. Wow, you whipped that t-shirt quilt out in record time and it looks fantastic!! I have one in the queue to start working on when I finish the Doggie quilt. Thank goodness my customers don't give me a tight timeline...LOL!

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  9. That is an amazing t-shirt quilt! I am waiting until DS graduates high school to put one together from his t-shirts.

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  10. Congratulations on your t-shirt quilt. It came together beautifully.

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  11. Wow, love the t-shirt quilt you put together! Brilliant quilting, too! Thank you for the linky!

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  12. Whoop Whoop for a great finish. Where did the week go, you say? What about, where did March go????? Time is flying by so quickly.

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  13. Hi Sarah, that's a really nice quilt. I'm sure the girl will be thrilled. I made one last summer for my nephew. By the time I was given the t-shirts and hockey jerseys, I had one month! I ended up sewing full-time (as well as working full time!) I did like the way that you can make it up as you go along. I really enjoyed the process and I'm going to make sure to get more time for my niece!

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  14. The first T-shirt quilt I made was also done puzzle style. And I made another quilt, out of blocks given to me by friends, in that style. I love it and the way it looks. But it IS a lot of work and very time consuming. All my other T-shirt quilts were made in rows. They're a lot less interesting. They still took a lot of time though!
    Love this quilt a lot!

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  15. This is a fantastic t-shirt quilt! I love how it turned out!

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  16. You made a beautiful quilt that will bring joy for many years. It is hard to believe that it is your first t-shirt quilt. I have made over 70 so far and even though they can be challenging they bring so much joy. Look out, you are on your way.

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    1. Hi, Peggy! I didn't mean to be misleading - I've made many t-shirt quilts, this was just the first puzzle style quilt I've made! All the others have been blocks with sashing.

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  17. You did a good job. You are right. They are very time consuming. Your quilting looks nice too.

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  18. Great job! I have bags of T-shirts from our girls' pasts that I need to tackle. Maybe I can get them to help me with that this summer since two are living here this year. :)

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