T-shirt Quilt Class: Part 2

Note: I've had this post written for almost a month.  I've just been waiting for Christmas so these can all be gifted!

As part of my t-shirt quilt class I offer my longarming services at a discount for taking my class.  All of my students took me up on this offer.  So during our first Saturday class I spent quite a bit of time figuring measurements and telling the ladies how many yards of backing fabric and batting to buy.  My normal quilt intake is that I quilt in the order that I receive the quilts.  When I received all the quilts on the same day I stuck with that same way of doing things.
Scroll through to see all the different t-shirt quilts that were made and how they look after they were quilted. Enjoy!

Close up of the quilting.

Finished quilting.

Close up of the quilting.  I actually really liked the quote on this tshirt.

Finished Manhattan High quilt.

I loved the colors on this quilt.  It was bright and beautiful.  I'm still looking for some of the purple border fabric for myself.  She said she bought the last of it at JoAnn's and she wasn't kidding!--This picture doesn't want to move to hang out with its like pictures so here it rests.

Finished Riley Co. HS quilt.  He was very involved in sports.

On this Riley Co. HS quilt I put different sporting balls in the sashing.  Here's a baseball I drew freehand.

The basketball I freehanded in the sashing.

Football.

This says Falcons. I wrote it with block lettering freehand with my quilting machine.  

The finished Pi Beta quilt.  

This quilt had some creative blocks to get all the tshirts included.  

A close up of the previous picture.  There are actually 3 shirts that make this block up and we appliqued the K-State Proud shirt to the shadow border to make it have the wavy look.

I'm really proud of this shirt.  My quilting machine didn't balk once and going through 3 layers of interfacing, 4 layers of  tshirt material and a layer of satin letter material all at once on the opening of the shirt.

This is the front side to a two-sided quilt.  There are over 30 shirts on the front and another 30+ on the back.  The vertical sashings are made with old jeans.  The make of this quilt made this tshirt for her daughter.  They adopted her when she was about 10 or 11.  One of her first requests was that her mom make her a tshirt quilt.  So this year is the 10th anniversary of her adoption so her mom who had been saving tshirts and jeans all these years made the daughter her tshirt quilt.  

Here's the backside of the humongous tshirt quilt.  I worried a little about the tshirts lining up and quilting through the denim but it was smooth as a whistle.  

T-Shirt Quilt Class Part 1

This fall I was lucky to teach a t-shirt quilt class through a local community organization, UFM.  I was talking with the director about quilting classes that would do well and we some how got around to t-shirt quilts.  I've made several t-shirt quilts throughout the years and recently started making them for others.  When you're sewing for others efficiency becomes essential.  I decided I had enough practice making them that I could teach others how to make a t-shirt quilt class. Note: I only remembered to take photos at the last class so I sprinkled them throughout the post even though they don't technically line up with each topic in each paragraph.

Meg working on putting the sashing onto her t-shirts.

I set my class up into 3 sessions. The first session was only 1 hour on a Wednesday night.  This class was specifically to cover what the students would need to bring to class on the two Saturday sessions we would be holding and to demonstrate what we would be covering the first session.  I had handouts and materials all there so everyone could see exactly what was going to be needed.  The most expensive too that students were going to need for the class was a 16.5"x16.5" square ruler to cut out their t-shirts.  They cost $35 at our local fabric/crafting store in town.  Luckily, the day before class my brilliant husband decided he could make them a lot cheaper than that so he went to the Home Depot and purchased some thick clear acrylic and made one on his table saw here at home.  At class I offered for those who were interested he would make them one as well.  Everyone took me up on that offer.  His only cost $10.  They don't have the nifty measuring lines but for our class we didn't need them.

Barbie working on her t-shirt quilt.  This was Barbie's first time sewing.  She did an awesome job!

Our first Saturday class was an all day class where you worked until you were finished.  We cut off the arms and sides of our shirts, ironed on lightweight stabilizer and then cut out our shirts with our new nifty 16.5" square ruler.  Most ladies had between 9-16 shirts.  I had one very ambitious lady who had over 60 shirts!  (A little more on her quilt in my next post.)  Students brought their irons, ironing boards and cutting supplies and worked hard.  Most everyone was finished before 4PM.  No sewing required!

There was lots & lots of ironing throughout our classes.

This was a mother-daughter team, Bonnie and Shelly.  Their teamwork worked great. They brought only one set of
all the supplies and it worked out that while one was sewing the other was ironing or setting
up for their next row.

The following Saturday we met again to piece our t-shirt quilts together.  After answering the question multiple times, "Are you sure we are going to get these done today?"  I think I finally had them convinced that we would.  And we did!  With all of the prep work out of the way we started sewing on our sashing between the t-shirts and then joined them into rows of t-shirts.  We then connected the rows with sashing and added our borders.  These were some hard working and determined ladies in my class.  I helped by ironing and cutting as necessary.  My biggest job throughout all the classes was doing the math for fabric amounts and such.
Everyone finished the piecing of their quilts on the day.  My student, Diane who had the 60+ t-shirts finished the front side of her quilt, using 30 t-shirts on it.  I would say that's pretty darn good work!  Next time I'll show you how their quilts looked after I quilted them.

Our mother-daughter team, Shelly and Bonnie, showing the t-shirt quilt Bonnie pieced.

Our mother-daughter team, Shelly and Bonnie, showing the quilt that Shelly pieced.

Barbie's quilt pieced at the end of a long day. This is a gift for her son for Christmas.  We figured he wouldn't be
surfing quilting blogs and run into his quilt so he went ahead and put it in here.  :)

Quilts, Quilts and Barn Quilts!

I've been busy finishing up the end of the school year as a kindergarten teacher.  It seems like the last days are the busiest.  I've been able to get a few quilts done as well.
This first quilt you have seen before.  It's the quilt I taught how to make in my Beginner's Quilting class I taught for UFM.  It's a simple log cabin design.  (If you'd like to learn I'm offering this class twice this summer through UFM.)  One of my participants had never made a quilt before and I think she did a great job.  I did the quilting for her.

The finished quilt.

A close up of one of the log cabin blocks.

The back, since now that I'm a quilter I like to check out the back as much as the front.

 My next quilt I did for a fellow Deacon at church.  I love this pattern and color choice.  I am a bright person so the colors spoke to me.  Originally we had agreed on a loopy pattern but after I did the double bubbles on the K-State quilt I knew this quilt needed the same pattern of quilting.

The finished quilt.

One of the blocks.

A close up of the back.

A closer look at the quilting on the front.  So I like looking at the front quilting, too!

The last quilt is another Quilt of Valor (QOV) quilt I did.  The neat thing I liked about this quilt is I am finally getting quicker in my quilting so I can finish one of these in an evening after work instead of dragging out over several evenings or a Saturday.  I loved the pattern on this quilt and I felt like I had just the perfect color of thread for quilting it.

The block with my standard stars & loops that I use for a lot of my QOV quilts.

The finished quilt.

Lastly, here are some pictures from our visit to Dustan's family a few weekends ago.  They live in Wichita county, Kansas, which is not the county Wichita, KS is located.  Instead Wichita county is way out west about 40 miles from the Kansas-Colorado border.  Wichita county is having a quilt barn initiative.  The local eco-development is trying to get folks to put up a barn quilt on the local barns.  My in-laws have joined in and I think their barn turned out quite exquisite!  Everyone had an opinion on which quilt block should be used.  I picked my top three and I know this was one of my top three so I was happy.

The barn.

A closer look at the quilt block on the barn.

 Our dogs travel with us quite a bit.  Happy our Golden Retriever went along with us.  He was in love with the water sprinkler my mother-in-law had going in the yard.  He really liked it but I thought this picture was the funniest of them all since it looks like he is scared and running away for his life!

It's coming to get me!