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Friday, August 10, 2012

4 Clothing Quilts


I recently reconnected with a friend I went to school with via facebook.  Elizabeth does quilling, makes jewelry, and the occasional quilt.  I also befriended her mother on facebook.  Elizabeth's Mom, Jacqueline, lost her Mother recently.  Jacqueline and Elizabeth saved a bunch of her clothing with the intention of having it made into a quilt.   Jacqueline separated the clothing by color into 4 stacks, and each stack would be made into a different quilt.  

I've made several T-shirt quilts, but never made a quilt out of just clothing.   To be honest, a year ago, I probably wouldn't have felt confident enough to make a quilt out of clothing.   Working with a variety of different fabrics raises the difficulty level significantly.  Some fabrics are stretchy, some are very thin, and some fray like crazy.  Using a lightweight fusible stablizer on some of the stretchy and thin fabrics helped a great deal.  All-in-all I think they turned out quite well.  I gained alot of confidence with these quilts and look forward to working with clothing again. 
These are the stacks of clothing, after I had removed all of the seams, and unusable stuff.  

I started with the blue fabrics first.  Since there were more of them than the others, I choose the blues to use for the Log Cabin quilt.   This is a combination of log cabin blocks and pocket blocks.  (Pockets from the clothing) This is actually the first time I have made a log cabin quilt.  Strips are 1.5" finished. 


Next quilt I started on was the purples.  Here are all of my squares, with drawn stitching lines for HSTs.  

and here are all my HSTs, pressed and ready to be sewn. =cD

The finished top.  

I used the "Trail to Treadlonia" block for the greens.  Since there were not a whole lot of green fabrics, I used a white background fabric for this quilt.  

Here are all my TTT blocks trimmed, and a pile of trimmings. ;c) 

TTT blocks hanging on the wall.  I was thinking about adding the pockets to this one, but it didn't look quite right. 

For the red group, I kept it simple.  Just some simple 3" finished squares and pockets.  

Here are all my quilt tops, and backings.  The backings are all homespuns. 

 Closeup shot of the quilting on the green quilt.  For the Green and Red Quilt I used this super thick batting.  It was very hard on my back and shoulders, but it really turned out good I think.
 Quilting on the Red quilt.
Quilting on the Blue Quilt

Quilting on the Purple Quilt



Finished Purple Quilt

Finished Red Quilt

Finished Blue Quilt

Finished Green Quilt

5 comments:

  1. Great job, wonderful quilts, made of old fabric, like it used to in former times.
    Thanks for sharing.

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  2. Thank you, yes, I agree. This is about as "traditional" as my craft gets! I enjoyed it immensely.

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  3. No wonder we have not heard anything from you for a month! Girl, you've been busy, sewing up a storm! I love traditional quilts and these are beautifully and thoughtfully made. Good job!!!!

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  4. These are just beautiful. I'm sure your friend will appreciate them for years to come. Great job!

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