Quilting!

For those of you that don't know, when I graduated college, I told myself that I needed a hobby.  I felt like if I didn't find something to do with my time and energy, I was going to find myself sitting on the couch, eating every evening...  To save myself from this almost certain fate, I decided that I was going to try my hand at quilting.  I figured it couldn't be that hard, all I would have to do is sew in a straight line, right?  WRONG!  But the more I practiced, the more I realized it was something I really enjoyed doing.  I have always been a mathematical person, and I find that piecing a quilt is like a puzzle.  I love it!

I have made baby quilts in the past, and even a large queen size quilt for myself.  (Although, it ended up being a little crazier than I expected and is probably too bright for use in my bedroom on a regular basis, but it was fun to make and I'm sure that I will find a use for it!)  This past month, I was asked by my best friend, if I would make a quilt for her from all of her old t-shirts.  Well I've never actually done a t-shirt quilt before, and I have been told that sewing with Jersey Cotton can be pretty difficult, but I told her I would do my best and see what I could come up with.  While she was pulling her shirts together, her roommate asked if I would also make her a quilt.  I told her I would do it and started with her shirts as soon as they arrived in the mail.

My mother-in-law has had much more practice with quilting than I have, and is very good at t-shirt quilts.  Come to find out, she has a trick.  She has a set of plastic squares that are all standard sizes for quilting blocks that she uses to cut out perfect squares.  This allows her to have perfectly straight squares and nice, sharp, crisp looking edges.  She gave me the dimensions to get my own plastic squares cut.  All you have to do is take the dimensions to your local hardware store and they can cut the squares for you.  (Here is the cheat sheet that she gave me!)

Using these squares (I used mostly the 12.5"x12.5", the 16.5"x16.5" and the 8.5"x8.5" on this quilt) I was able to cut out the appropriate number of blocks, all in nicely coordinating sizes.  Here is the rough draft of the layout of the quilt that I am making for my best friend's roommate!  She wanted the center of the quilt to be her letters from her college sorority.  She also has a lot of shirts from Carnegie Melon, where she attended college for her undergraduate degree.  So far, things are looking pretty good.

After the blocks were cut and laid out, I was able to sew all of the pieces together.  Because I knew that every block was the appropriate size and perfectly square, it made the process pretty easy.

The top of the quilt is now done.  It needs to be ironed and the batting and backing need to be put together.  Then I need to actually "quilt" the quilt.  But I hope to have it done and shipped off soon!  I will post pictures of the quilt when it is complete!