Wrapping up the T-Shirt Quilt

Do not let the title of this post mislead you dear friends of First Fridays!! It’s your old friend TJ here from Studio Mailbox about to fill you in on the on-going saga of my quilting progress. Last month I shared with you how I switched gears and started a T-Shirt quilt to practice my skills while getting a holiday gift ready. I had fully expected to stroll in here and report how awesome it looks and share a bunch of dazzling photos so you could all “ooh” and “ahh” while congratulating me and mentioning how amazing I am.

Well I guess I better break it to you: I am not ready to gift-wrap the T-shirt quilt. It is only about half-way done. It is December 5th people and I am not even close to done! When was somebody going to mention how hard quilting is? Seriously. I am kind of embarrassed that I thought I would just crack this out over the course of a couple weeks, sewing a little bit on it here and there. Even if you sewed on this all day, it would take a few days to get this done. Maybe even if you knew what you were doing! Ho ho ho. I am in trouble.

During a call with Heather I explained that I wanted to try out a Quilt-As-You-Go method. (Or QAYG for those “in the know.” But please don’t let me get away with writing that as if I’m old hat at this. I was walking around saying “QAYG” like the way a 2-year old might say the name “Craig.” It was months before I realized it wasn’t a special quilt square, it’s an acronym. WOW. Just wow). Anyway I was intrigued with the idea that you could work your way through all the layers of a quilt as you’re going along instead of making an entire top, a whole bottom and then using batting like a condiment on a giant fabric sandwich.

I sewed my quilt squares together in long strips and then cut flannel for the back in long strips the width of my squares. The first challenge I discovered was that I had chosen a hounds tooth print for the backside. Now I am struggling with the consequences of that bozo decision as I try to get those strips on the back to line up. I think they won’t line up all over because when I cut the flannel I may not have gotten the print completely square on my cutting mat. I folded my giant piece of fabric a bunch of times and then hacked through many layers. I’m not sure if that was the right way to do it and frankly I think the pattern was running just the slightest bit diagonal so now when I go to sew those backside strips together nothing is matching up. My lesson has been learned. It’s very wabi-sabi of me to embrace that fact that “done” will be better than “perfect.”

The next dumb stunt I pulled was that I somehow didn’t buy enough flannel for the back. Or maybe the cutting counter girl shorted me by two inches. Or maybe flannel shrinks a bunch when it’s pre-washed. Whatever the case may be, I am going to have to do a little freestyle at the end in order for this to be long enough. Assuming my son will be as tall as every other male in our family if I do not add some inches on the top and bottom of this thing the poor kid’s legs will be sticking out from the knee down if it’s tucked under his chin. My bad.

I did go through extraordinary efforts to hand stitch a little label for the backside. Please, try to hold back from commenting on my iron. I know it’s hard. Once you see something like that you can hardly “unsee” it. Maybe you guys could pass a can around and collect loose change for a new one. That thing is horrendous! But the tag… sew cute right?

The only thing scarier than my iron is my practice piece of free motion quilting. I had the very naive idea that I could free-motion those long strips before adding the next one. Bawaaahaa haaa! I have no idea why I thought I could do this, since I have never done it. (My ex-husband used to say that I would try to drive the space shuttle if the operator’s manual was laying around). He was right. Here I am practicing my skills on my son’s favorite t-shirts unlike normal people who would have practiced on scraps and stuff first. Check out my star that looks like it grew a thumb and then send help.

But look at this thing overall. Do you see the “Sup Dawg?” square? The one with the hamburger talking to the hotdog? That was my kid’s favorite t-shirt. He wore it every time it was clean. I had to stall putting it back in his drawer or he’d wear it every day if he could. He thought that was the funniest shirt in the world. We would say it whenever he would walk into a room wearing it. “Sup Daaaaaawg?” we’d jeer. It’s totally in our family’s vernacular now. And that’s what you’re really doing when you’re putting a project like this together… you’re taking those memories and turning them into something that gives them a longer life. Even if your stitches are crappy, even if the backside pattern is wonky, even if the t-shirts have stains.

And just in case you were wondering if I still used the “red guy” from the t-shirt I cut poorly and lopped off the top of his head. Yes I did:

Did anybody else jump in and start a T-shirt quilt for the holidays? What’s under your machines? Are you busy like elves getting gifts done? It’s hard to believe that the next time I check in with y’all it will be a whole new year. Here’s wishing you and yours a safe and productive holiday season! xx TJ

TJ Goerlitz is a mixed media artist who pretends to be a seamstress whenever possible. Come connect with her on her site, Studio Mailbox, her Facebook page, or in Pinterest. Join in the story of the denim quilt every first Friday of the month where she will share her progress (or non-progress) right here with the readers of The Sewing Loft.