T Shirt Quilt

 

I've been plugging along on the t-shirt quilt for middle child.  If you don't remember, I am making this quilt out of t-shirts from high school.  I'm well over halfway finished now, and thought I'd share some of the quilting process with you.

This is one of the blocks on the bottom of the quilt. When you quilt, you begin in the middle and work your way out to the edges.  I've already finished the middle 9 blocks in the quilt, and this particular square is in the middle, on the bottom row of the quilt.  I've centered the quilt inside of my quilting hoop.  The brown along the bottom is the outside "frame" of the quilt.

Here is another view of the quilt.  If you look at the bottom edge, you can see the batting up next to the hoop.  The safety pins were placed in the quilt to hold the batting and backing in place while the quilting was in progress.


 

I remember asking my husbands' grandmother once "How do you actually quilt?"
"It's easy," she replied, "You make the needle go up and down, up and down".
In theory, that's it.  It depends upon what kind of pattern you want in your blocks.  On the t-shirt squares, I am just outlining the letters in stitches.

The letters are outlined...

The finished square!  In addition to outlining the letters, I also stitch along the edge of each block.

A closer look at the stitch work.

 



I've got 9 squares left to go.  I've finished 15 squares to date.  The black blocks are harder than I anticipated.  I'm quilting on black fabric with black thread, and the stitches are difficult to see.  I'm working on the black block next the this block right now, and I'm taking pictures as I go.  Once I finish the black block, I'll post pictures of what I'm doing to quilt the black blocks.  (Besides going cross-eyed!)