Enough with the Tshirt Quilt Already!

Another post about the tshirt quilt yay! Don't worry, I promise this is the last one because I'm finished!! Excited would be an understatement. This is by far the biggest sewing project (I guess it's technically quilting, but I rarely do anything technically correct so we're going to stick with sewing) I've ever worked on. And I even finished in a reasonable amount of time!

So I'm going to run through the last steps to finish the quilt then I'll post these on the tutorials page and you'll never have to read about my quilt quest again. : )

I think I mentioned before that the back for my quilt came from a king size set of jersey knit sheets on clearance at Target. I wanted the fabric on the back to be similar to tshirt fabric, so this was perfect. And my Beverly's doesn't carry jersey knit fabric on bolts (meaning there's a pile of random fabric and I would've been in luck only if I wanted fabric with apples on it or purple with glitter stripes but not so much otherwise). I laid out the flat sheet over the tshirts and (after much positioning and repositioning) cut it down to size.

Enough leftover for a dress?? Maybe?....ok, no.

Don't be too jealous of the froggy slippers I got for Christmas : )

I'm not sure if you have much experience with jersey sheets but they tend to stretch out kinda weird after you wash them, so I left 4-6 inches excess on two sides when I cut just in case. And it's a good thing because that's not exactly a "straight" line.

Next I cut the batting down to size. A little side story about the batting (or bantam according to my husband, I have no idea where he got that!?). I found some Warm and Natural batting for a full size quilt online at Walmart for $8! I had that in my shopping cart faster than you can say, "Warm and Natural for less than half price." I had it shipped to our "local" (10 miles away if you can believe that) store and it finally came in this week. I went to pick it up and they brought out a small box...a box wayyy too small to contain any batting. Then I picked the box up and it weighed less than a pound - not good. Too bad the guy "helping" me had no clue what batting was and was trying to tell me that this was my order (a Cuttlebug stamp was inside, which is nothing at all like batting). Long story short, or at this point just slightly less long (sorry), I returned it and bought some cheapo batting at Walmart.

The batting was much easier to cut than the sheet since it wasn't stretchy.

I had some trimming up to do - originally I was thinking maybe I would have like 2 inches of the backing show around the edge on the front of the quilt, but my sewing/calculating skills wouldn't allow for that. : ) 

 

Next you're going to lay everything out and pin it down. I did this the hard way, so maybe I can save you some trouble. I had the tshirts on the bottom to help line everything up, but I ended up re-pinning everything so the tshirts were on top and I could see the edge more clearly when I was sewing. The tshirts and the back material will be RIGHT sides together, then the batting goes on top.

Sew around the edges. I had a 1/2 inch seam allowance because I knew there were a couple spots where the batting wasn't quite as wide (probably due to my ultra precise cutting method). I left one square open for turning.

Clip corners and press seams (ugh). As I'm writing this (and still haven't pressed the seams) I'm debating on whether to just tie the quilt by hand at the corners of the tshirts or go ahead and stitch all the way down each row and column. I ended up not exactly pressing all of the seams...do you have any idea how hard it is to press seams that involve batting? You may have better luck if you trim the batting really close to the seam after you sew everything together (but mine turned out fine and I skimped on the pressing and didn't trim).

So turn everything right side out. Now you quilt it or tie it...or whatever the correct term may be. I decided to hand tie the quilt at all of the tshirt intersections because I didn't want lines going all over the back. I did probably around 6 stitches at each intersection and used thread that blends into the backing so it isn't very noticeable.

Karen at Sew Many Ways has a great blind hem tutorial that I used to close up the hole I left for turning. And then......I was done!!!! I tried to get some pictures of how cozy I am in my blanket, but I didn't have much luck.

I take no responsibility for the painting on that wall. It is my husband's and despite my many attempts to hide it, it's still hanging prominently in the living room.

You'll just have to take my word for it, I'm cozy! So there you have it. I promise, no more quilt posts because I don't have the patience to make another one for a very long time! Thanks for reading and enjoy your weekend!