Bardy's quilt

Bardy was a very dear friend. I was one of his opera dates, and we went to many concerts at Lincoln Center.   He passed away a year and a half ago.  I was so pleased when his wife asked me if I could make a quilt from his shirts.  And here it is!  The pictures don't do justice to the fabric, but trust me, the quilt is so lovely. 

As I was going through the shirts, I realized that turquoise was a main color.  So, Bardy, here you are.  I hope that Sue Ellen can curl up under your quilt and feel you there.

Happy Dance!

Shirt Strings flimsy is almost done.  Just waiting for the border fabric to arrive.  Here's Hiz Hubz, holding it.  He told me to forget the extra row I was going to put on, and I'm happy to oblige. 

Yay, me!  This is the biggest quilt I've tackled and I'm never going to make any quilt much larger.  I figure it'll be around 60" with the border.  Happy dance all around the house.  Whoo hoo.

I'm exhausted with all the excitement.

Design Floor Monday - Shirt Strings

Shirt quilt so far.  I figure 7-8 rows of 6 blocks, plus a border, binding.  All made out of shirts that I found at thrift shops or garage sales.  This is for the Hubz, and he is so totally into it that he now scouts out shirts for me.  The rules for this particular quilt are:  all-cotton if possible, although there are some cotton/poly blends in here; colors are blues and white and/or a bit of green.  In my fair isle knitting years, I always had a sparkle color someplace to add a bit of zip to the pattern, and now in my quilting years, the same thing holds true.  So, the green adds the zip.  Well, at least I think so.

Here's what a block looks like before trimming. 

And here it is after trimming.

Cool, huh?  I could do this all day long.  I see many more string quilts in my future.  I love the process, plus it doesn't matter much if my seams are wonky.  Yay, wonky seams.

I've spent maybe $10 - 15 on these shirts so far, and I have so much material that I can easily make 3 more of these quilts.  Now I want to use "real" fabric for the next one, and play around with sewing blocks together and then cutting to make different blocks.

Shirts Strings Sing

 

String quilts are such fun, especially when they are made out of men's shirts and bought at bag sales at thrift shops.  XXL shirts yield a ton of fabric, and even smaller sizes have lots to cut.  I look for 100% cotton, although I'm happy to take a cotton/poly combination provided that cotton is the main fiber.  So far I have 4 10" squares done, and lots and lots of fabric to go. 

The Hubz needs a guy quilt, and what could be more guy than men's shirtings?  And do I care if he gets ketchup on the quilt?  Nah.  This is just leftovers.  

The trick is to spend very little money on the shirts, no more than $2/shirt, and even better, if the thrift shop is having a sale of stuff a bag for $5, boy can you ever squash in those shirts! It also helps to have a theme.  So, I look for blue and white and occasionally a bit of green.  Easy peasy to find, since most men's shirts seem to be blue and white.  Stripes, plaids, checks, it doesn't matter.

And on a much slower note, here are the Dots and Boxes joined together.  These are English paper pieced, all hand done, and they take forever.  Nice to do in front of the TV, or chatting with the Hubz.  Im not particularly interested in speed, so EPP suits me just fine.  And now that I'm fixated on string quilts, well there is where I can zoom along.

Such fun!  

And yesterday I found my long-lost Dresden template, and you know what's in my head now.  Little Dresden circles.  I have tons of charm packs, too.  No pics because this is all in my head.

As for my poor knitting, alas, I seem to knit only at night and am working on a very large shawl.  One of these days I'll show you.