Erica's T-shirt Quilt #2

Finished General Mills Quilt

      This is the other t-shirt quilt I made for my friend's daughter.  She worked for General Mills and accumulated a lot of t-shirts and other things from working there.  She sent me t-shirts, lanyards, bandannas, a hat and even a rain coat.  The only thing I didn't use was the raincoat.

Layout idea

Fabric idea

     I did a general layout first to get an idea of size.  Then I found a fabric in my stash that I had bought to be part of a black and white quilt for myself.  It was a larger piece and I thought it would make great sashing, not fighting with all the colors but also not boring.  Erica approved and then it was time to get to work.

Pieced block and lanyard in sashing

Lanyard in pieced block

Hat piece topstitched in place

     I played around with the t-shirts, combining some into one block, even turning them sideways to fit better.  I add the lanyard in a couple of different places, once between two t-shirts that were combined to make a block and once in the middle of a sashing piece.  I wanted to use both the crown and the brim of the hat on the quilt, but I couldn't get it to lay flat enough so I opted to use only the crown as  the brim was fairly thick.  I did have to undo my sewing to place the hat piece into the seam between the pieced block and the sashing strip.

Pieced backing

     I found a good deal at Missouri Star online for three yard cuts of black batik for the backing.  Unfortunately it wasn't quite enough.  Fortunately I had enough of the sashing fabric that I could make a big enough back and still have enough to do the binding.

Sewing on the binding

     After getting it back from the quilter, Chris J, I added the binding to the back, brought it around to the front and stitched it in place.

Back corner detail

Front corner detail

     Another fun project but I did have to use my brain a bit more to make sure all the columns were the same length.  

Erica's T-shirt Quilt #1

Finished quilt

      I had the daughter of a friend of mine reach out to me to make her a couple of t-shirt quilts. I had done part of one from her high school t-shirts awhile ago and now she had some college t-shirts and work t-shirts.  The first is from her college t-shirts.  She wanted fabric in between the t-shirts and also wanted it to be quilted and have a binding.  

General idea for layout

      My first step is to cut the t-shirts apart and then get a general idea for a layout.  There were several shirts that had only a small chest logo, so I combined those together to make a block for one column.  I found some great batik fabric at JoAnn's for the sashing and a coordinating solid for the backing. 

Three small logos combined

     After determining the general layout, I fused interfacing to the backs of the t-shirts to stabilize them and then cut them to size.  For some of the blocks, I used both the front and the back to make a larger block.  

Back with the quilting pattern

     After assembling the front, I took it to a quilter for her to do a meandering stitch to hold the layers together.  I then stitched the binding to the back, brought it around to the front and top-stitched it in place.

Binding detail

Master Bath Redo and Valances

Close up of the valance over the tub

      About a year and a half ago we had our master bedroom and bathroom painted/repainted.  The bath went from a pink color to a sage green that was the feature wall and headboard in our bedroom.  When we had the bathroom remodeled years ago, the mirrors were placed too high.  I just learned to live with it but when we were doing the repainting, I asked my painter if he could have his guys move them down and also the light fixtures.  Of course they could, for a price.  I'm so happy I had them do it, makes a huge difference.

Changing the wall color

     Then it was up to me to fabricate the valances.  I wanted the same valance design for both the bedroom and bathroom, just different fabrics.  With the help of my designer, I chose the M'Fay pattern #9104 but with the scallops all the same length.  The window frame was 43.5 inches wide so I went with a finished width of 46" to make it slightly wider than the frame but also keep the math simple.  That meant each of my scallop sections were 11.5" wide.  The designer thought a finished length of 15" would be good.  After hanging them, maybe a little longer would have been better but it also would have meant buying quite a bit more fabric as the repeat was rather large.  I chose to make the valances with the same fabric as my bedroom draperies with the solid green contrast.  The bedroom valances will be plain white with the green contrast.  

Pattern used

Pattern pieces

Pattern placement

     Once I got the math figured out and the pattern piece drawn, I chose the placement of the embroidered pattern keeping in mind the seam allowance.  I cut the pieces and then sewed them together.  For the lining I chose a napped blackout fabric because I wanted to add some body to the lightweight fabric.  This did make for some thick pleats though.

Pinned to lining

All cut

     I had to use my foyer floor to lay it all out flat.  I pinned the sewn piece to the lining and cut it out.  Sewed around the three edges, leaving the top open.  Pressed it, clipped curves, turned it right side out, more pressing and then serged the top.

What is wrong?

     I drew my markings on the board for the center of the scallops and the center of the under pleat.  I stapled it all in place and something wasn't right.  I couldn't figure it out, so I asked in a forum what do you think I did wrong.  The consensus was my scallop wasn't centered right.  Sure enough when I undid all the staples and rechecked my marks, I hadn't done the math correctly. Duh!  After redoing the marks and restapling, it came out the way I thought it should.

Now it's right

     I used some Wonder clips to train the pleats.  Before I had them hung up, I did take an iron to the back side to set the pleats more as they were so thick.  Another thing I had to do was add some batting the center of the scallops so that the top was more even.

Batting in place

     That was the easy window over the tub.  Then I had to tackle the problem window next to the shower.  When we had had the bathroom remodeled years ago, we moved the plumbing for the shower to an outside wall so we could have a glass enclosure for the shower.  That meant they had to add another 'wall' to prevent the plumbing from freezing so now it jutted out next to the window.

Problem window/wall

      The depth was about equal to the depth of my mounting board.  My question was whether to make the whole valance smaller, but then the center pleat would not be in the center of the window.  Should I just make the right scallop smaller?  Again I went to the forum and asked.  A suggestion was made to just keep that last scallop the same but leave the extra unmounted.  So a bit more math and figuring things out and that is what I did.  The final 1 3/4" was sewn closed at the mounting line and no return on that side.

Tape for the dust cover fabric

Dust cover fabric in place

Taping the tack strip

Tack strip in place

     The last step was doing the dust covers.  I didn't have enough of the embroidered fabric to do the dust covers so I thought maybe I would use the white from the bedroom valances.  That meant I needed to cut the bedroom valances to see if I had enough fabric. Nope!  Now what?  Decided to just use white lining, but not the napped stuff, that was just too thick.  I applied Jewel's Tape to the top of the valance, laid the lining piece on. Then more Jewel's Tape on the back of the tack strip and smoothed that in place.  Finally I stapled it all down, pulled it to the back and after folding in for a clean edge, stapled the back side.  

Valance over the tub

Valance by the shower

Free hanging scallop by the shower wall.

     My husband bought the angle irons and mounted the valances for me.  That was a tricky job also as the one window was over the tub and the other had a very small floor area because of the toilet.  I wound up on a second ladder inside the shower helping him.  Also, the mounting board was just slightly shallower than the extended wall so we had to mount it slightly away from the wall.  For now the extra part of the scallop is just sitting there in front to the wall but if necessary I may add some Jewel's Tape to keep it in place.  

Family Room Drapes

Drapery panels in my family room

      We have been in our house for over 25 years and never had drapes in the family room.  We had gotten cellular shades for there and had to replace them a few years back as the strings broke and we couldn't fix them anymore.  Originally we used this side as our eating area so drapery panels didn't seem like a big deal.  Probably 10 years ago I bought fabric to make the draperies but never found the time.  About 5 years ago we had a motorized rod installed, I thought that would give me the incentive I needed.  Finally I realized that there was no way I could handle the multiple widths and finally hired someone to make them for me.

Before the panels

Stacked off the glass

     You can see the motor in the right hand side of the before photo.  It never really bothered me to not have draperies, I liked the openness of the room but now that they are made and hung up, it really seems to complete the room.

Motor housing

Closed drapery panels

     When my husband and I installed the draperies we had a few obstacles to overcome.  In order for the panels to go all the way to the wall, I had to remove the last hook on the right side of the drapery panel so that I could cover the motor. I used Jewel's Tape to secure the panel to the front of the motor housing.  On the left side I had to install an eye hook to the wall and move the last pin out of the pleat and into the very end of the panel and then attach it to the wall.  Now I have wall to wall draperies in my family room.  I specified two finger pleats with less fullness so they would stack back off the glass leaving it as open as it was before.  I have attached a movie showing the drapery panels in action.