My First Quilt - Part 2

As this is the sequel to me previous post, there is no need to retell the backstory and therefore I'll just jump right back into it. I finished the center "HD" block and fixed the triangle blocks so all of my lines were straight. In order to finish the next ring of the quilt I was now forced to start sewing the t-shirts.

The Second Tier

As my design shows, scroll down or click here to see that, there are four shirts to cap of the corners in this ring. I planned it this way because there were some t-shirt designs that were too large to fit anywhere else (every other shirt I managed to make into 14 inch squares, but just a few refused to be subjected to such uniformity). Rather than cut off the designs, I just made them an exception and gave them their own rows.

With fear and trepidation I began to sew the shirts onto the triangle blocks. Two shirts on either side of the top and bottom triangle blocks, and then I sewed the left and right side triangle blocks onto the center piece. This gave me three rows to sew to finish the inner parts up. I like a good visual so here's further explanation:

Culminating in an extended center section, and with that ring done I could move on to the final tier.

The Final Tier

Now that I had sewn a few t-shirts, the fear had worn off significantly and I was ready to start the next section of the process. Twenty squares in four rows to go around the outside of my center section. By this point things were moving fairly quickly and I had found a groove that was working for me.

I sewed six blocks for the top and bottom rows and four blocks were sewn vertically for the left and right sides. I sewed these on to the center piece the same way I sewed on the second tier. This is where some of the older t-shirts showed their resistance as they didn't like to stay fused to the interfacing. I had to re-iron them a few times during the process, but eventually everything came together.

One thing I learned at this point is that the smaller sections are so much easier to get the seams lined up. When you are working with and 84 inch long section of block it's a lot more difficult to acquire precision. Honestly at the end of the day I was happy as long as I managed symmetry and straight lines. Working steadily I managed to finished stitching the top quilt (which for those of you who don't know quilting is the fancy pieced together part). Here's the finished top quilt:

Layering

So I'd finished the top quilt, but there was still plenty left to do. A traditional quilt is made of three layers: the top quilt (as mentioned above), batting (fluffy filler that gives the quilt it's warmth), and a piece of backing material to cover the batting on the reverse side.

As I've said, this is a large quilt and in order to get the layers put together I needed to lay it out and pin/baste it together. This might seem relatively simple, but I live in a small apartment where every room is doing double duty. Luckily for me a lovely friend of mine offered to open her home where she had plenty of space. With the help of this generous lady and my mother-in-law I managed to get all the parts lined up and pinned together.

Quilting

This next part baffled me for some time and I wasn't sure if I could even do it myself, but this is the part that makes a quilt a real quilt. 'Quilting' refers to sewing through the layers, locking them together and causing that 'pillowy' effect that we all love. In researching this I found that a lot of people will send their pieces to be machine quilted professionally by stores or individuals who own long-arm sewing machines. I contemplated doing things this way, but the prices were out of my range (they generally charge per square inch and... did I mention this is a big quilt?).

After more research, lots of blogs, and a few youtube videos I found a way that I could do it myself.  It wasn't going to be altogether easy, but doable. The trick is to roll your quilt so that you can sew the center and work outward. The fluffier your batting is the harder this will be to do. Lucky for me my batting isn't terribly lofty and I managed to get it through my machine.

I knew that I didn't want to just sew straight lines through all the designs on the shirts so from more research I found a tool called a darning foot. This goes on your sewing machine and allows you to sew free-hand designs. I used the normal foot on my machine first and did all the straight lines that I could first to minimize what I would have to do free-hand.

Now I know that a lot of quilters like to do the quilting by hand, and originally I thought I wanted to do this too. After doing a few of the blocks that way my hand starting cramping and honestly I didn't like the way it looked as much as when I machine quilted it. It might be my technique, but I found that what I did by hand didn't puff up the way I liked. Maybe my stitches aren't tight enough, I don't know, but I think I'll save the hand-quilting for another project. Like a potholder or other similarly small project.

At this time the quilting stage is not fully completed, so it seems this will be a three-parter to be completed when I'm fully done with the quilt. Then there will be plenty of pictures and information, and more importantly joy, celebration, and happy dancing.