A Quilt and Some Pillows

This is the second t-shirt quilt for the Children's Church.  I'm not sure about the green that I chose, but the kids like it.  I tried several colors in my stash, but I don't have a lot of kid friendly prints.  The back is a zig zag flannel with red, orange, green and teal on a white background.  I difinitely like the back! Sorry there's no picture.

There are so many shirts that the church has left over from camp and things that I couldn't possibly use them all.  So we took these white ones (which were ugly shirts in my oppinion) and turned them into cute pillows!

These white ones are going to be given away at camp with a colored sharpie as a "signing" pillow.  The campers can have their cabinmates sign the pillow as a keepsake from camp.

The process is quite simple.  After I cut off the top and sides of the shirt,  I used the 14.5 inch template that I have been using for the quilt blocks and drew a square around the design with disappearing ink.  Then I pinned and sewed about 1/2 inch inside the line leaving a hole at the bottom of the shirt for stuffing.  

We trimmed the top and sides with pinking shears on the ink line.  My daughter stuffed the pillows and I sewed them closed.  Finally, we cut the bottom with the pinking shears and it was done!

Here are a couple pillows we made for the Children Church store.  The kids earn tickets by learning verses and get to spend them at the store.  The "R" pillow stands for Revolution Youth. and the purple pillow below came from a young ladies retreat called "Her Virtue".   

So if you have old, or new, t-shirts laying around but you don't have enough for a quilt, you can always turn them into a pillow for a wonderful keepsake!

A Cozy Zig Zag Quilt

This quilt came about from the Color Intensive Workshop taught by Rachel at Stitched In Color.   We had an assignment to pick colors from our color card that represented a feeling or an emotion.  I chose cozy and here's my color palette:

Then we were supposed to pull fabrics to go with our color cards:

If I'm going to take the time to pull fabrics then I should use those to make a quilt!  I was missing a dark brown, so after a fabric shopping trip last month I chose the zig zag pattern that's made from rectangles (as opposed to HSTs).  I also removed the lightest yellow print, because it was too light.  It's not a huge quilt as I have been making them with nursing home recipients in mind.

My cute helpers were being playful as we took some photos!

As I was trimming the sides of the quilt top, I was thinking there should be some way to use those odd shapes.  I sewed 2 pieces together to make a square, sashed them with 1 inch black strips and sewed them in a line.  It looks more impressive in person!  Anyway, I was pleased with myself for using the scraps on the back of my quilt.

  Thanks for stopping by!

Star Light Star Bright Quilt-A-Long Finished!

Here's my quilt for the Star Light Star Bright Quilt-A-Long hosted by Melissa of Happy Quilting.  She has excellent step by step instructions for you on here blog!  Thanks so much for all your hard work Melissa!

I started with my fabric pull:

Then we cut the pieces: 

Next came the flying geese: 

 Then we had to decide on a layout:

Sewing a million HST...no not that many, only 384! 

Then we sewed the center star: 

The sides:

And finally the corners: 

The finished top: 

What did I learn in my first quilt-a-long?
1. I learned how to make flying geese.
2. 384 HST is way too many for one quilt!!!
3. I don't like to make quilts...I like to FINISH quilts!

I used the leftovers on the back:

While I did enjoy the quilt-a-long, I think I get a little ambitious and then impatient when making a quilt.  It was hard to wait for the next week to sew the next section of the blocks.  And I'll admit that I finished this last week because I just couldn't wait any longer! 

Head on over to Happy Quilting to see the quilt parade on April 2!

Black and Orange T-Shirt Quilt

Aren't my helpers cute?!  We were having fun taking pictures of this t-shirt quilt.  It's going to the children's church for the leaders to give away to someone who is in the hospital or has had a tragedy.  I plan to make a few more for them to give away also, but one at a time!

I quilted a meander in a rusty orange color. 

This is half the size of the last one, so I added a 1 inch black border around each shirt and then sashed the hole thing with 2.5 inch orange.  I picked 3 shirts that seemed to go together and will be real nice for a little boy.  It's a totally different look this way.  The back is a blue flannel so it's nice and soft.

I'm linking up with Show and Tell Tuesday at Fresh Squeezed Fabrics and Freemotion by the River

Quilted Fleece

I finally bought some fleece to make this quilt.  This quilt has fleece on both sides with no batting in the middle.  I bought a yard and a half of each.   After I loaded it on the quilting machine, I quilted a line 6 inches down and 6 inches in on both sides to leave room for the fringe.  I quilted a double line to make it a little more sturdy.  Then I quilted meandering loops inside the lines.

After I quilted it, I trimmed the edges to 5 inches from the quilted lines.  Then I cut out the corners and sliced the fringe about 3/4 inch wide.  Next time I need to remember to load the top on the bottom so the plain fleece is on top.  You can't see your quilting very well on the print side!

Now that it's done, I'm wondering if the fringe is going to rip and how will this wash?  Does anyone have one of these?  I want to give it to an older lady, but only if it will hold up to use.