A very special quilt: Part 2

For the crafty folk who read this blog, here are the sewing details on the quilt I made in honour of Chris Friesen. You can read the first part of the story here.

Knowing that knit fabric can be tricky to work with, the first thing I did was talk to a quilting expert to get some advice. She recommended attaching stabilizer (interfacing) to the back of each piece so that they were no longer stretchy. Expert advice is always so reassuring.

After sorting the items into jerseys and non-jerseys, I began designing the quilt by cutting up pieces of graph paper into squares or rectangles based on the size of the logo, crest or number on each item. In order to accommodate the largest of those, I had to base everything on a 12-inch square. Once cut out, I used crayons to colour each one the same colour as the actual t-shirts so I could map everything out and avoid placing a bunch of one colour together. Then, it just became a matter of moving the pieces around until I had an arrangement that worked and used up all of the items.

With my plan in hand, I cut out each item to the pre-determined size and interfacing to match. I was so worried about a cutting error that I even had a post-it note stuck to my cutting mat to remind me to look at the back of the shirt before I cut to make sure I wouldn't slice through something I needed for another square. Thankfully it worked - no mis-cuts!

Then came the ironing...oh, so much ironing...but it was so worth it. The interfacing worked its magic and sewing up the squares was a dream.

Instead of quilting by hand or with my machine, I opted to try hand tying. If you've never made a hand tied quilt before, I highly recommend giving it a try. It looks best with a lofty fill (which luckily, Ingrid had requested). I basted everything together with regular thread first so that I could get everything aligned before attaching the binding.

I used some fairly heavy material from two coats for the binding. It worked quite well, but I might have gone for wider strips that would have made it a bit easier to accommodate some of the bulkier parts at the corners (where I cut up and positioned two toques to make pockets).

Once bound I used a bamboo-silk yarn to tie the quilt and fasten buttons off the coats onto one side of the quilt.

Like I said in my first post, I've never had a project come together so smoothly!