Make Your Own Fascinator!

 I originally published this post on 5/21/2018. I had made my very own Fascinator to wear to work on the day of the Royal Wedding. While Fascinators aren't exactly high fashion in the United States, they are a LOT of fun to make and wear!  And with Halloween quickly coming, I thought someone might like to make something like this to wear as part of their Halloween costume!

I made a Fascinator on Thursday to wear to work on Saturday in celebration of the Preakness - oh, and the Royal Wedding.  It was actually very easy to make!

I used the pages of an old book that was falling apart to make a large paper flower.  Since I used a Dr. Seuss book, I used bright purple berries to make the centers of the flowers.  I hot glued the flower petals together.

I bought a spool of tulle and a found a spool of sparkly rhinestones in the endless crap supply in my basement, and a headband from the grocery store.  I scrounged some floral wire up at work, and the next thing you know, I had a fascinator.

I looped the tulle into 8 very big figure 8's, and then tied it in the center with the floral wire.  I did the same thing with the blingy tape, and wired it onto the tulle with the same floral wire that I wrapped around the tulle bow. 

I then hot glued the paper flower into the middle of the bow.  I wrapped the wire from the flower around the headband and Voila!  It's a fascinator! 

Oh, the feathers!  I forgot them!  We had a stash of feathers at work that someone brought in for craft projects.  I brought 3 of them home to use for my project. 

Note: Don't you love how I didn't bother to link any directions on how to make that flower in the middle? I know I cut petals from the book. I know they were rounded on one end and a square triangle on the other.  Honestly, what was I thinking when I wrote these directions?  I didn't have a Cricut at the time, but I seem to remember cutting out the petals that looked something like this: https://sweetredpoppy.com/how-to-make-large-paper-flowers/ and then took some poetic license with the shape of the flowers and the size of the petals to make a flower that would look decent on my head.  Seriously, why didn't I post the link or the pattern?  What was I thinking?  

Making a Fascinator

I made a Fascinator on Thursday to wear to work on Saturday in celebration of the Preakness - oh, and the Royal Wedding.  It was actually very easy to make!

I used the pages of an old book that was falling apart to make a large paper flower.  Since I used a Dr. Seuss book, I used bright purple berries to make the centers of the flowers.  I hot glued the flower petals together.

I bought a spool of tulle and a spool of sparkly rhinestones from the endless crap supply in my basement, and a headband from the grocery store.  I scrounged some floral wire up at work, and the next thing you know, I had a fascinator.

I looped the tulle into 8 very big figure 8's, and then tied it in the center with the floral wire.  I did the same thing with the blingy tape, and wired it onto the tulle with the same floral wire that I wrapped around the tulle bow. 

I then hot glued the paper flower into the middle of the bow.  I wrapped the wire from the flower around the headband and Voila!  It's a fascinator! 

Oh, the feathers!  I forgot them!  We had a stash of feathers at work that someone brought in for craft projects.  I brought 3 of them home to use for my project. 

Finishing a Quilt

Years ago, when my husband graduated from college, his mother made him a quilt.  Not just any quilt, this was made from 5" squares cut from his old pairs of blue jeans. Tied with blue yarn, and lined on the back with flannel, this toasty warm quilt has always been our favorite.  This was the only quilt he took to college with him, and once we were married, it has always been on our bed. 

Alas, 30 years has taken it's toll on the quilt.  The back tore, and the batting began to fall out.  The back tore some more, and more lining fell out.  Last year, I finally bit the bullet and tore off the remains of the batting and backing.  I picked up a new backing - in the form of a flat sheet at Target, and more batting.

I spent a quick hour on the floor of the church, pinning the layers of the quilt together. 

And now, the time consuming part.  Tying a quilt goes faster than hand quilting, but it's still a time consuming proposition.  The yarn has to be cut, and each tie needs to be hand tied.  I am putting the new ties in the same spots that my Mother in Law had placed them.  Originally, I was attempting to tie the knots in the same direction, but I gave that up as a lost cause after 50 knots.  That was just too much detail work for me.

I began working on tying the quilt before Christmas, but I stopped about a week before and put it away for a while.  I pulled it back out again last night and started on it again.  I'm about a quarter of the way through re-tying it now. I'd like to think that I'll have this finished before the end of January so that I can start on daughter's quilt while it's still cold out and I don't mind having a ton of fabric on my lap!

Pre-Cut yarn, the needle and the quilt.

Getting ready to run the needle into the middle of the square.

One more knot!

Another one done - so much more to go!

Felt Flowers

Our library branch is making a wreath to donate to Kennedy Krieger's Festival of Trees.  All of the money from this event goes to benefit the students at Kennedy Krieger. (It is held annually the weekend after Thanksgiving, and it is a spectacle that I can't describe.  Check out the link above, and you'll see what I mean!)

There are a group of us who volunteered to make things for the wreath.  We decided that we were going to make a Raven's themed wreath.  We've picked up some Raven's swag, but we also decided that we needed to make flowers.

We found this tutorial online to make felt flowers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fEX-uYsd5g

Somehow, something happened along the way, and my flowers turned out a little different than the ones in the video.  Mine ended up looking like this:

I think they're beautiful, but they're different than what's in the video!

I made both black and purple flowers.  The wreath is currently under construction.  I'll share pictures of it when we finish it.  It's going to be beautiful!

In the meantime, I've decided that the flowers were beautiful, so I bought some red felt to make red poinsettias.  I'm making a couple of wreaths of my own to donate to the church for the bazaar later this month.  I think I'll make one with red flowers, and highlight it with some nifty little seasonable baubles.  I'm going to make another one that will be purple and black, and filled with my own take on a Raven's wreath.


I've got a little over a week to decorate these wreaths.  Do you have any ideas on what to add to help splash these up and add a little glam to them?  Suggestions are appreciated!

Terrarium

Have you ever been to a paint night?  You know, one of those events where you get together, paint a picture, drink some wine, and come home with something you've painted?  I didn't want to go to a paint night, but I wanted to get

together with some friends.  We found an event that centered around plants, and decided to go.  We made a little terrarium, filled with succulents.  Considering my dismal failure with the cactus garden in Coke Cans, I'm wondering how long this will last before the cacti just give up and wither away.  If you look at the picture on the right, you can see just how sad my succulents looked after just a few weeks.  I blame myself.  I'm a terrible plant mother.  Other people manage to make things like this thrive.  Not me.

The actual making of the terrariums was a lot of fun. We began with colored sand, rocks and a large glass bowl. Add the rocks in at the bottom of the glass jar, and then layer in the sand and potting soil.  It ends up looking really pretty!  I think I ended up with more potting soil than I was supposed to.  Most people had a nice, neat little puddle of potting soil in the middle of their sand, and then they put the succulents in the middle of the soil, so that only the sand showed up on the outside of the bowl.   Not me.  Boy howdy, I love making a mess, and I didn't have any tools to make the sand go in nice and neat, so I just poured in the sand directly from the big zip top bags.  No fancy schmancy gorgeous, even layers of sand nicely leveled out and even for this girl.  Nope, I've got sand that reflects me - just all over the place and in uneven, kind of messy layers.  What can I say?  It's who I am!

The raw materials.

The view from the top.  It's kind of cute, isn't it? 

I think my next project is going to be to get a big, closed top lidded jar and try and plant a terrarium with some kind of warm, jungle like plants.  I think I need a big pickle jar.  You know, the kind you used to find at delicatessens that held something like 5 gallons of pickles.  I wonder where I can find one of those?  I wonder how long it would be before I managed to kill off all of those plants, too?  Like I said, I am a terrible plant mother.  I'm hoping that because they would have a lid on the jar, I wouldn't have to actually keep track of watering them. 

Book Review: Crafting With Cat Hair

Note: This Post Contains Affiliate Links.

Well, this is a fun little book.  Seriously fun.  If you have a cat, you have cat hair.  We've joked occasionally about taking the hair from the comb and spinning it into yarn, but have never actually followed through on that weird little thought.  This author decided that she was going to do something fun and unique with her extra cat hair.  She decided to make it into crafts.  What a brilliant idea!

Crafts ranging from cat tote bags, to finger puppets, to fluffy cat toys and picture frames, these unique, environmentally friendly crafts require no special tools beyond patience, cat hair, and a sense of humor.

This awesome little book is a great present for the cat lover in your life! 

The Quilt is Almost Finished

Only 4 years after my original target date, and after almost 7 months of work, oldest child's quilt is almost finished.  It's a hand quilted masterpiece!  (I think)

This is what the inside of the quilt looks like:

The entire quilt is alternating of these 2 types of blocks.

Now, here's the problem.  I have yet to do the outside border.  It's plain brown, and I need to do something to that edge, but what?  It's a bigger border than I've done in the past, so I have to do something to keep the batting from shifting.  Considering the intricacy of the stitching on the inside, I feel I need to do something special on the outside.

The white stuff is the batting.  I need to trim that down.

But, one problem:  he's moving into his new apartment (out of state) next month.  Actually, in a little less than 3 weeks, he's moving away from home and into his own apartment.  I want to hand that quilt off to him when he moves in.

Once I pin up the edge, this is how much space I'll have left on the brown.

I was debating leaving it open, but I feel that I need to do a little bit more than just a line inside and outside of the edging.  (Where the safety pins are sitting.)  I'm going to use the machine to close up the quilt binding.  And I'm debating using it to sew a seam 1/4" inside the edging, all the way around.

So, keeping in mind that I'm hand quilting the outside edge, and that he's moving into his apartment in a little less than 3 weeks, what would you suggest for the brown border?

Book Review: Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders

image: amazon.com

Durant, Judith.  Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders.  2008.  Story Publishing, North Adams, MA.

Softcover, $18.95.  ISBN: 978-1-60342-079-2.



I picked this book up from the library on a whim.  Someone gave me a bag of mixed yarn.  There is not enough yarn to complete one big project.  She literally gave me a huge bag full of yarn, with one skein each in different colors and weights.

So, when I found this book, I had to grab it and check it out.

As I've mentioned before, I've been knitting for a good long time.  I am an excellent knitter, and I do consider myself to be a cut above beginner.

This resource is fantastic.  These patterns are FUN!  Lace, straight knitting, cable, it's all there!  The patterns range from easy to expert.  Well written and well thought out patterns enable a knitter of any ability level to complete a quick and easy project.

The chapters are divided by yarn weight.  From super fine to extra bulky, you will find projects for those extra skeins of yarn just lying around your house.

I am currently working on a pillow for my daughter to take with her to go to school in the fall.  The thought is for her to have a few pillows to toss on her bed.  The pattern for the Silk - Cashmere Domino pillow is easy to follow, and I have had great success with the repeats of the pattern.  (No mysterious increases or decreases in stitches when I work the patterns.)

Even better for me, I don't have a silk- cashmere yarn to use with this pattern.  Instead, I pulled one of the blends out of the bag and I'm working the pattern with this blend.  It's a medium weight yarn, and I'm not adjusting the gauge on my stitches with this yarn to make the pattern end up the same size.  It's going to be bigger than what the pattern calls for, and that's okay.  It's going to be a toss pillow on her bed in a dorm.  I'm looking for texture and impact to help break up the monotony of a dorm room.

The only problem I have with this book is that I am now in a crafting dilemma.  As you know, I've been working on a quilt for oldest child to take with him when he goes to school in the fall.  I've temporarily put that away until after the graduation parties.  I have the uncut fabric for daughter's quilt sitting on top of my dresser.  The hopeful patterns look at me every time I walk into the room, reminding me that I really would like to have this finished before she goes to school in September.  This too has been put on hold until after the graduation party.  But what do I find time to do?  Knit a pillow with an intricate pattern.  (I can be such an idiot.)

Graduation Recipe Book

My oldest child is graduating from college next month.  He has lived on campus, and eaten food from the dining hall for the last 4 years. 

This fall, he's heading off to graduate school several hours away from here. 

He's also going to be cooking for himself.

As a result, I am compiling a recipe book for him.

I found this awesome recipe book at Hallmark not too long ago.  It's small, and it's a 3 ring binder.  3x5 inch recipe cards fit inside of the book, and each "page" is a plastic page protector that holds two recipe cards.  You can write front and back on the card, put it into the page protector, and read through both sides.  I love this little album.

You notice it has Mickey Mouse on the cover?  There's a reason for that.  When he was little, and he was getting ready to move to his "big boy" bed, we went in search of just the right sheets for his bed.  After more hours than I care to admit, my little man found his sheets.  (he was about 20 months old at the time.  We were trying to transition him to a big boy bed before his brother arrived on the scene 4 months later.)  He saw these sheets - red sheets- with the black and white Mickey Mouse on them.  He picked them up, hugged them to him, and the match was made.

Since that time, those sheets were his sheets of choice until he went off to college.  Worn down and faded with age and washing, he still has them on his bed at home, and he gets after me if they are not on his bed when he comes home from school.

Anyway, back to the album....

I thought I would collect all of the recipes for his favorite foods.  The stuff he has grown up eating and consistently asks for every time he comes home.

I hadn't realized what a monumental task this was going to be.  I have recipes on slips of paper, taped to the inside of cupboard doors.  I have recipes on paper, shoved into the cabinet next to the dishes.  There's 3 or 4 recipes in one cookbook, and 2 in another, and 4 in another.  A few are in e-mails, and several are stored on my flash drive.

I'm still working on copying the recipes, but I have finally put them all into one place.  Let me tell you, that is the most amazing compilation of recipes you have ever seen.  All of them are my favorites, too.  (I guess that explains why I fall back on them so often!)  From Arroz con Pollo to my mother's recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes, I have a treasure trove.  I sent my Mom a couple of recipe cards, and there, in her flawless penmanship are two of her timeless recipes. Not only is it a treasure because they are her recipes, but - they are written in her own handwriting.  That will forever be a priceless treasure for him.

You know, I've been realizing a couple of things as I've been compiling this book over the past few months.

1) I need to make my very own copy of this book.  I have too many recipes scattered in too many places.

2) While I have the recipes out, and tracked down, I need to go ahead and make copies for the other two children.  Life is uncertain, and I want to make certain that I have the recipes, written in their own handwriting, of the remaining members of the older generation. 

3) I wish I had thought of this 10 years ago, when most of the members of the older generation were still with us.

I know a lot of people don't cook from scratch very often anymore, but with a book like this - a book of easy, quick, favorite meals - I think it would happen a little more often! 

Glitter Dipped Mugs

With the winter weather we've had this week, I've been out of work for the majority of the week.  I've worked 2 days this week.  In the meantime, I've been hitting up my Pinterest Boards, and working on craft projects.  This is the latest find!  The glitter dipped mugs look beautiful, and I had to try!

The necessary supplies- glitter and mod podge

 I found the original project here: http://www.whitehouseblackshutters.com/glitter-dipped-mug/

Since the directions for the mug itself are written on the white house black shutters blog, I am not going to repeat them here.  You can follow the link to see the step by step directions.

Setting up the craft area:  lots and lots of newspaper.

The blue stripe is painter's tape.  Pretty purple glitter on my mug!

The mugs have been glittered - waiting for their layer of Mod Podge.

I do have a couple of very important notes on this.  The blue and green glitter is extra chunky glitter.  The purple glitter is superfine.  While the blue and green looks really cool, the purple is a little more understated, and it doesn't "glitter" the way you think it should.  It's pretty, but it's not glittery.

In her blog, Ann Marie recommends waiting overnight before applying anything over the glitter.  The directions on the bottle of Mod Podge say you can apply a second layer after 2 hours.  Don't do that!  Wait overnight between layers!  I waited an hour, and I applied three layers over the glitter on one mug.  On the other mug, I ended up waiting overnight between layers and I only added two layers of Mod Podge.  I also left the tape on my mug and didn't pull it off.  All big mistakes, let me tell you.  The entire purple glitter layer ended up peeling off of my 3 layer mug yesterday.  I'm going back and redoing the entire thing today.  I'm going to wait overnight in between layers, and I'm going to only put two layers of glitter on my mug.

So, was this a pinterest success or fail?  One mug was a roaring success!  Okay, so it was the one that I followed the directions to the letter.... The other one, I rushed and took a few shortcuts.

I'll claim this as a Pinterest Success Story!

Making a Quilt a Quilt

After years of procrastinating, I finally finished piecing oldest child's quilt, pinned it with the batting and backing, and now I'm getting ready to quilt it!  Oldest child is an Eagle Scout.  With this thought in mind, I purchased the fabric for a Boy Scout Quilt online at the Fat Quarter Shop.  (No affiliate link here, I just wanted to let you know where I found the fabric!) 

The pattern included with the fabric was easy to follow.  A four square alternated with a large block.  Everything is joined together with green strips.  This begs the question - Why did I procrastinate so much?

I hand quilt what I make, so I've got to get this mounted into a quilting hoop.  My hoop is big.  I found it about 30 years ago, and I adore it!  The hoop is easy to use, and it screws tightly together to hold the fabric in place.  I've seen floor mounted hoops, but I like this one because it is portable.  I'm not tied down to one location with this hoop.

My quilting hoop.  You see that big wood block on the upper left corner?  That's got the screw and wing nut, where I tighten the hoop once I've placed it securely over the fabric.

A view of the squares.  The blanket is not yet mounted on the hoop.

In the hoop, I've tightened the wing nut to hold the fabric in place.

This is a crucial step.  I pull the fabric from the outside of the hoop.  The fabric needs to be tight so that the stitches and fabric are even and there are no fabric puckers.

Fully loaded and ready to begin!  I'll pull the loose threads off before I begin quilting.  The safety pins hold the layers of fabric together.  As I quilt, I'll remove the safety pins from the area where I am working.

I've had people ask me before how to quilt.  I'll tell you what my husband's grandmother told me when she taught me how to quilt:  You just go up and down and up and down and keep on going until you're done!

Seriously, you just make a series of small stitches.  If you've ever cross stitched or embroidered, you can quilt.

For this quilt, I'm going to outline the big squares, in the green lattice work.  Inside of each square, I'm going to quilt diamonds- much like I did with middle child's t-shirt quilt, only these are smaller squares, so there will be fewer diamonds.  I'll post pictures of the quilting itself in a couple of weeks.

I feel like I should do "something" else in the green lattice work, but I'm not certain what I'll do.  I'll have to outline a few squares first and see how I like this before I decide.

Christmas Quilt

The quilt!  (Okay, wall hanging), edges cut and ready to close.

Several years ago, I bought a lovely Christmas Quilt panel that was designed by one of my favorite artists- Laurel Burch.  I bought a pair of cat earrings that she had made about 25 years ago, and I've been an avid fan of her work since then.  

I found the material at a great little quilt shop, Patches Quilting, a locally owned and operated business.  You know, I'm all about supporting local businesses whenever and wherever I can.  

Anyway, I bought the fabric panel, but neglected to buy anything to back it with at the time.  

This past November, I ventured back to Patches and found a fabulous fabric- solid black with small gold dots that would pair well with the fabric.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I laid pinned the fabrics and batting together, and began quilting.

I know that there are sewing machines out there that quilt, but for right now, I wanted to hand quilt this piece.  I hand quilted the baby blankets for all of the children, and I plan to hand quilt the blankets that I am giving them for graduation.

I finished the quilting earlier this week.  Today, I cut the edges down so that I can sew the edges closed.  I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to close the edges with quilt binding, or if I'm going to turn the edges in and sew them together.  I'm still not certain which one I'll do, but I do have a month or so to decide.

In order to cut the edges, I used a straight edge metal ruler and my fabric scissors.  The ruler itself is the width that I want for the border, so it was a perfect match.  I lined up one edge of the ruler against the bottom edge of the red band that surrounds the quilt pattern and cut evenly.

Edge of quilt, straight edge, and scissors.

One note about fabric scissors - dedicate one pair to fabric, and only to fabric.  The scissors need to be sharp and cutting anything else with your scissors - paper, cardboard, tape, will dull the scissors and they will pull the threads at the edge of the fabric and cause some serious fraying of your very expensive fabric, and even more lovingly quilted materials! I've had my scissors for longer than I've been married.  When the kids were born and I quit doing small crafty work, quilting, etc, I locked my sewing scissors up (along with my straight edge ruler, rotary cutter, and needles) into a box with a lock and several packets of silica gel to prevent rusting.  Everything went up on a top shelf.  When I broke into the sewing stuff again 5 years ago, everything was in perfect condition and I didn't have to purchase new supplies.

The very nice thing about this fabric is that the design is already woven into the fabric.  There was no piecing or sewing of small parts.  The only thing I did was to hand quilt it- I traced around the outlines of each of the designs, as well as outlined the borders on the quilt.

Now that I'm looking a little bit more at this quilt, I'm leaning towards closing the edges with quilt binding.

A close up of the bird tree- center panel.

The bird ornament.

A Birthday Lamp

Oldest child's birthday is last week, and I made him a lamp for his birthday.

No, I didn't decide to take up pottery and cast a lamp on a wheel!

A friend of mine found this project on Pinterest, and made one for her son.  She posted the completed picture on her Facebook page, and I thought it would make a unique present for the kid who just turned 22.

I found the lamp base and shade at Target.  The top portion, that has the light bulb fixture detaches from the base, which is basically a giant 5 gallon jar.

As I've been cleaning out the house, I've taken all of the odds and ends of toys that belonged to him and put them in the jar.  These are the little toys that I knew he really enjoyed playing with when he was little, and they had survived our move 8 years ago.

I think it's a pretty cool memento of his childhood. As an added bonus, I got some of the extra stuff that had been laying around the basement cleaned up, and I also sorted through some stuff that has been sitting around, collecting dust for a while now!

More T Shirt Quilt

These are pictures of the black on black squares.

As of this morning, all of the quilting on the right hand side of the quilt is finished! I have the left edge, and two black squares bordering the black edge left to finish!  I might, just might, have this finished in time for Christmas!

I decided to make straight lines, diagonally across the squares.  I could use a fabric marker to show me where to stitch, but since I don't have one on hand, and I don't want to spend any more money than I have to, I'm following along the edge of a ruler.

Diagonal rows.  When they make a quilt, the Amish deliberately make a mistake which is called "The Fear of God".  Legend has it that they believe that only God is perfect, so they deliberately make mistakes.  Look at my quilting, and you'll see a lot of that!  The rows are mostly straight, and mostly go in the same direction!  I'm not willing to pull quilt stitches out- my stitches tend to be small enough that I worry I will damage the fabric if I do pull anything out.  Instead, my interesting lines will be caught for everyone to see - forever....

Starting the cross rows back to male a diamond pattern.  If you look closely at the bottom left corner of the block, you should be able to see two completed rows of diamonds.

More finished block.  Each black block is covered in a diamond grid, much like this.  (Some are a little more unique than others!!)

And that's all.  I estimate that I have about 2 weeks worth of quilting left before I move onto finishing up the edges.  That will be an entirely new challenge!

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!) 

 

T - Shirt Quilt

This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all! 

 For middle child's high school graduation, I am making him a t-shirt quilt.

I have amassed a pile of t-shirts from his robotics tournaments and such not over the years, and I have piled them all up into a great, large pile of shirts to make into a quilt to give him when he graduates.  (Yes, it's in less than a month.  Think I could have waited any longer?)

The most important part of making this quilt is to make certain that all of the fabric has been sized, and gone through the washer a couple of times.  I have three new t-shirts for this shirt that he's never worn before, so I've run them all through the washer and dryer several times over the last week, so that they will have shrunk up, much like the older shirts that he's worn many times over that are going into this quilt.

The next step is to cut the shirts up.  That's where I am now.  The shirts have been cut apart, so the arms and backs have been removed.  I have just the fronts, uncut, with the logos and pictures on them. 

I also have the backing from the fabric store.  There is a special backing that is ironed onto the back of the cotton jersey in order to give the fabric stability, so that it won't stretch oddly out of shape when it is sewn together with other t-shirts, or with the cotton squares I'll be using for contrast.

I bought other fabric at the store to tie it all together.  I'm not expecting to have enough shirt fronts to fill an entire quilt, so I am going to alternate blocks of t-shirts with blocks of fabric. 

And now, we arrive at my conundrum.  I have all the t-shirt fronts, but the designs are all different sizes, and I need to find a consistent size that will hold all of the designs so that I can cut the fabric blocks the same size. 

Ahh... Math.  I always wondered when you would rear your ugly head!  If only my math teachers in high school had told me that I'd need to know this in order to do craft projects, I probably would have paid closer attention!

Seriously.  I have a large mat - 36" x 36" for cutting out quilt blocks.  I'll be pulling out the mat later on today, and measuring the designs on all of the shirts and finding the one consistent size that I will need to cut every block.  I'm planning on going for the shirt with the largest design- and then adding an extra inch and half on every side- so that there is a fabric border around the picture, and 1/4" all the way around for seam allowance. 

I'll post the pictures tomorrow.  This promises to be an interesting experience today!