Memories Quilt

I finally got a chance to make myself another quilt. I have only made one big quilt and a smaller one in the past. Those quilts were probably easier than this one. The main reason is that they were both made with squares of the same size. This one is definitely not all the same size.

I call this my 'Memories Quilt' because it is made with t-shirts, denim, and fabrics that all have some memories attached to them. Lots of the t-shirts are from Youth Conference, Girl's Camp, and high school. There are some that were from trips we made as a family, but in reality they still happened when I was in high school.

It took me a total of 3 days to finish this quilt. I did most of the cutting on the first day; sewing and cutting the front on the second day; and then basting and putting the edging on the third day. This quilt is BIG, too. It's a little over 5' wide and 8' tall. It'll definitely be nice to take out at school since it will fit over my bed there nicely. And it will be good to have to lay out on the grass with or take to football games to stay warm. ;)

Want to know how I did it? You can see that a lot of the pieces are the same size. I made piles of shirts that I knew would fit in the same template size; each row was a pile. Since I was doing four across for the t-shirts I knew it would be good to use the scrap fabrics I had to make triangular pieces. (These pieces were already triangles because they were headbands in the past.) I was able to also get more fabrics on the quilt that way. When you enlarge the picture you'll see that some of the pieces had to be made to fit into their square shapes. I just used fabric from the same t-shirt to make it less apparent. Then I sewed the rows together and then the rows to each other. When you get that part done you need a bottom layer of fabric and batting. I trimmed those to the same size as the top and use a yarn darner to bast some yarn through all three layers. Then you pin and sew on the edging!

To be honest it really is an easy project. You just have to make sure that you have the time to actually do it. I like how mine turned out and now this way my t-shirts and fabrics will last a lot longer!