It all started out because
Adam (Rick's son) kept stealing the quilts from our bed. The kid always seems
cold, and he's always running around wrapped up in some kind of blanket,
and if he'd had his way any time he was here he'd have taken every quilt/blanket
etc in the house for himself. So I decided to make him a quilt. I'd had a
bunch of pieces cut for a twin sized quilt that I'd never put together. At
first I was going to make that one up, but it wasn't really "Adam". So I
got the wild idea to make him a quilt using old flannel shirts.
I had NO where near enough flannel to do even a twin sized quilt, and since we plan on him eventually having our full sized bed, I wanted to at least make him a full sized quilt. So I put up a request on the local freecycle list here, and I hit some of the charity shops looking for old shirts. Ended up with far more shirts than I needed, but that's a good thing.
After washing all the shirts I started disassembling them. Basically I cut off the collars, cut off the button and button hole strips and cut off the cuffs. Then I took the sleeves off at the seams and cut them open at the seams. I took the two front pieces off of the backs at the shoulders, and the ... um, not sure what's it's called, but the top part of the back, from shoulders to say mid-back. Pressed all the opened pieces so they were nice and flat. I wanted some amount of solid color, for both the squares and for a backing and sashing/binding around the blocks and edges. To keep from having to piece together a backing, I decided to go with a set of full sized flannel sheets, in a solid navy, to use as the backing (flat sheet) sashing/binding (fitted sheet) and solid patches in the blocks (pillow cases and the cute little drawstring bag that many sheet sets seem to come in these days ... as if you'd ever get the sheets BACK into those cute little bags to store them). Rick's mom had a couple other of those little bags she gave me to use as well, including a nice solid tan one. For future reference if anyone cares to know, a pillow case will give you about 2 yards of fabric, and the bags will yield about a yard.
Originally I was going to do actual quilt blocks, but finances prevented me from getting the templates I'd need to do that. I ended up with a template for making either 8 inch squares or 4 inch squares. So I decided on 9-patch blocks. I cut the shirt flannel and the other fabric into 4 inch squares. Sewn together 9 makes a 12 inch block. Almost forgot to press seams, but remembered after sewing together the strips for 5 blocks (but not sewing the three stips together thankfully). Then after doing all the squares, I measured how much sashing I'd need to make a full sized quilt. I miss calculated the whole thing and ended up with a queen sized quilt, but that's a whole different ball game lol. Cut the sashing into long strips from the fitted sheet (after cutting the elastic off and opening the corner seams ... and of course pressing). Then instead of cutting the strips to fit the squares I'd sew a strip to one square, cut off the excess and sew the next square to the strip etc ... that way I didn't waste any of the fabric. Seven rows of six blocks later, I started sewing the rows together with the solid blue flannel between each row.
Then it got a little dicey. Rick and my apartment is SO small there was no way I'd be able to lay the top, batting and backing out to pin together to get it ready to sew together. And, my 'work' table is basically an end table someone gave to me and definately was not going to be big enough for me to sew the whole thing together. So while Adam was in school I brought the whole thing down to Rick's parent's house to finish it up. Rick's mom and I decided to lay the three layers out on her queen sized bed to put it together. THAT'S when I discovered it was NOT a full sized quilt ... we had to adjust for each edge because it hung about 3 inches over the sides and four or so over the foot of the bed. Got the front and backing laid out and they fit together just fine, removing the hems of the top sheet gave a full sized enough extra fabric to fit with a queen sized quilt top. The batting was another story. We had to stretch it a bit to fit, but managed to get everything together and pinned. THEN ... I nearly forgot to leave an unpinned section to remind myself NOT to sew it completely shut. I did manage to remember before sewing it shut though thankfully. Turned the whole thing right side out and discovered one corner didn't sew correctly. Turned it back, tried again, turned it right, still not shut. So I did a major no-no and just machine sewed it on the right side of the quilt. I also machine sewed the planned opening shut too. Should have hand sewn it, but as I suck large at hand sewing, and the machine stitching is far stronger than anything I'd have hand stitched I figured it didn't matter that much. Of course AFTER I got it all sewn together we discovered another spot that hadn't caught when I was sewing the layers together in the first place. Another faux-pas that I machine stitched instead of hand stitching.
What I had thought would take me about an hour and a half to two hours ended up taking me damned near 5 hours. Not enough time to do the tieing off. I'm sure I did it the wrong way, but it was something I felt I could do a part of, move it over, and do some more of. Seems to have worked, it's not lumpy or lop sided. Some people don't like tied quilts, but my Mom always does hers that way, and since this was a first attempt for me I figured I'd do it Mom's way and not screw the thing up too much trying something new.
I really wish I'd taken 'in progress' pictures while I was making the quilt. I definately will for the next one (and I already have two more planned. A hunting/fishing themed Nap Quilt (instead of lap quilt) for Rick's dad (who's all put out because Adam won't share his quilt lol) and a Hulk or Super Hero themed quilt for Rick's nephew James. I did get pictures of it all put together, pictures of Adam opening it, and pictures of him actually using it ... follow the LINK
I had NO where near enough flannel to do even a twin sized quilt, and since we plan on him eventually having our full sized bed, I wanted to at least make him a full sized quilt. So I put up a request on the local freecycle list here, and I hit some of the charity shops looking for old shirts. Ended up with far more shirts than I needed, but that's a good thing.
After washing all the shirts I started disassembling them. Basically I cut off the collars, cut off the button and button hole strips and cut off the cuffs. Then I took the sleeves off at the seams and cut them open at the seams. I took the two front pieces off of the backs at the shoulders, and the ... um, not sure what's it's called, but the top part of the back, from shoulders to say mid-back. Pressed all the opened pieces so they were nice and flat. I wanted some amount of solid color, for both the squares and for a backing and sashing/binding around the blocks and edges. To keep from having to piece together a backing, I decided to go with a set of full sized flannel sheets, in a solid navy, to use as the backing (flat sheet) sashing/binding (fitted sheet) and solid patches in the blocks (pillow cases and the cute little drawstring bag that many sheet sets seem to come in these days ... as if you'd ever get the sheets BACK into those cute little bags to store them). Rick's mom had a couple other of those little bags she gave me to use as well, including a nice solid tan one. For future reference if anyone cares to know, a pillow case will give you about 2 yards of fabric, and the bags will yield about a yard.
Originally I was going to do actual quilt blocks, but finances prevented me from getting the templates I'd need to do that. I ended up with a template for making either 8 inch squares or 4 inch squares. So I decided on 9-patch blocks. I cut the shirt flannel and the other fabric into 4 inch squares. Sewn together 9 makes a 12 inch block. Almost forgot to press seams, but remembered after sewing together the strips for 5 blocks (but not sewing the three stips together thankfully). Then after doing all the squares, I measured how much sashing I'd need to make a full sized quilt. I miss calculated the whole thing and ended up with a queen sized quilt, but that's a whole different ball game lol. Cut the sashing into long strips from the fitted sheet (after cutting the elastic off and opening the corner seams ... and of course pressing). Then instead of cutting the strips to fit the squares I'd sew a strip to one square, cut off the excess and sew the next square to the strip etc ... that way I didn't waste any of the fabric. Seven rows of six blocks later, I started sewing the rows together with the solid blue flannel between each row.
Then it got a little dicey. Rick and my apartment is SO small there was no way I'd be able to lay the top, batting and backing out to pin together to get it ready to sew together. And, my 'work' table is basically an end table someone gave to me and definately was not going to be big enough for me to sew the whole thing together. So while Adam was in school I brought the whole thing down to Rick's parent's house to finish it up. Rick's mom and I decided to lay the three layers out on her queen sized bed to put it together. THAT'S when I discovered it was NOT a full sized quilt ... we had to adjust for each edge because it hung about 3 inches over the sides and four or so over the foot of the bed. Got the front and backing laid out and they fit together just fine, removing the hems of the top sheet gave a full sized enough extra fabric to fit with a queen sized quilt top. The batting was another story. We had to stretch it a bit to fit, but managed to get everything together and pinned. THEN ... I nearly forgot to leave an unpinned section to remind myself NOT to sew it completely shut. I did manage to remember before sewing it shut though thankfully. Turned the whole thing right side out and discovered one corner didn't sew correctly. Turned it back, tried again, turned it right, still not shut. So I did a major no-no and just machine sewed it on the right side of the quilt. I also machine sewed the planned opening shut too. Should have hand sewn it, but as I suck large at hand sewing, and the machine stitching is far stronger than anything I'd have hand stitched I figured it didn't matter that much. Of course AFTER I got it all sewn together we discovered another spot that hadn't caught when I was sewing the layers together in the first place. Another faux-pas that I machine stitched instead of hand stitching.
What I had thought would take me about an hour and a half to two hours ended up taking me damned near 5 hours. Not enough time to do the tieing off. I'm sure I did it the wrong way, but it was something I felt I could do a part of, move it over, and do some more of. Seems to have worked, it's not lumpy or lop sided. Some people don't like tied quilts, but my Mom always does hers that way, and since this was a first attempt for me I figured I'd do it Mom's way and not screw the thing up too much trying something new.
I really wish I'd taken 'in progress' pictures while I was making the quilt. I definately will for the next one (and I already have two more planned. A hunting/fishing themed Nap Quilt (instead of lap quilt) for Rick's dad (who's all put out because Adam won't share his quilt lol) and a Hulk or Super Hero themed quilt for Rick's nephew James. I did get pictures of it all put together, pictures of Adam opening it, and pictures of him actually using it ... follow the LINK
