Search This Blog

Friday, January 27, 2017

T-shirt for Colton

Thomas t-shirt


     For my grandson's fourth birthday I made him a t-shirt.  Like most little boys, he loves Thomas.

Piece cut from sheet


     I had made him a cot sheet for school from a top sheet that mom had bought.  I kept the leftover fabric, of course.

Ready to fuse in place


     I cut one of the squares from the sheet and fused heavy duty Wonder Under to the back.  This is the no sew kind.

Front ready for construction


     I then carefully cut around the engine design and ironed it to the front piece of the t-shirt.  The fabric was from my stash and the neck band was from a t-shirt I had cut up to make a quilt.

Pattern used


     I used the Kwik-Sew book for the pattern, tracing out the size four.  After that the construction went quickly.

Tapes used to make it easier


     I used the fusible bias tape to stabilize the shoulders and the double sided fusible to hold the hems in place while I stitched them with the cover stitch.  I love my Babylock serger that also has the cover stitch.  The right tools help make projects sew up quickly and neatly.

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Barilla T-shirt Quilt

Finished quilt



     I had another t-shirt quilt to make for a client.  This one was a bit unusual in that they wanted to have sashing strips.  Lately my requests have been for just the t-shirts in the quilt top.

Lanyards


     After deciding on the t-shirts, a request was made to add the lanyards to the quilt top and then also some pompoms from the tops of knit caps.

Knit cap


     I cut the lanyards and stitched them to the horizontal sashing strips using invisible thread.  The pompoms I hand stitched in the four corners.

Detail of sashing strip with lanyard


     The back was fleece and I stitched around each of the t-shirt squares to tack it all together.  Another t-shirt quilt but with a bit of a twist this time.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Stained T-shirt, Oh My

Embroidery design



     A while back, my mom got herself a few new t-shirts.  After wearing one of them to dinner she managed to drop some barbecue sauce on it.  Despite getting it washed right away, the stain did not come out.  Of course she really liked the color of this t-shirt.

OOPS


     I offered to embroider something over the stain.  My first thought was to do a series of designs that would go up to the left shoulder.  The stain was a little too much in the center to just do a left chest placement. When looking through my stash of designs, I came across this bluebird border from Embroidery Library.  I thought this work work great as as center placement that would cover the stain.

Stitching the design


     I printed out a template of the design to be sure it would work.  I marked the t-shirt then with pins, ironed on a mesh stabilizer and hooped some sticky paper.  I placed the shirt on the hoop and checked my placement.  I then floated some tearaway stabilizer under the shirt because I knew this design would be rather dense.

All finished


     Well over an hour later with multiple threads changes, the t-shirt was done.  Some pressing from the back and my mom now has a beautiful new, unstained t-shirt to wear once again.

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

A Sorority T-shirt Quilt

Pile of shirts


     Another T-shirt quilt.  This one was all her daughter's shirts from her sorority functions.  Most of them were t-shirts but a few were tank tops or halter tops.

Adding on fabric to be able to cut a square


     Those sleepless tops did present a bit of a challenge because they were not wide enough at the top to cut a square.  What I did was to cut the arm area at an angle and then cut pieces from the back of the shirt and sewed them on with a 1/4" seam allowance.

Front enlarged with extra from the back


       I then pressed the seams open and then fused the stabilizer to the back.  I prepped all the shirts, cut the stabilizer and got ready for pressing.

Prepped shirts and cut stabilizer


    I fused the stabilizer to the back of the prepped shirts and then cut all my squares.

Ready for cutting


     I used my 12-1/2" square ruler and my turn table cutting mat.  This made it very easy to center the design, cut two sides, rotate the mat and cut the last two sides.  No repositioning of the ruler for the four cuts.

Tools used


     After cutting all 30 shirts, I arranged them to spread around the different colors and themes.  I sewed them together with 1/4" seam allowance.

Backing


     I then pieced the fleece backing and spread it out on the floor.  I placed the completed top on the fleece with right sides together.  Pinned all around, trimmed to size and then stitched all around.  I left an opening for turning and then stitched around the perimeter.

Top on the backing


     For the quilting, the client opted to just tack in the corners.  I stitched in the ditch for a few stitches out from the intersections of the shirts.  It made for little crosses on the back of the quilt.