Madi's T-Shirt Quilt -- Work in Progress

My sister saved many T-shirts for her daughter over the years.  This past fall I was given them to make a quilt.  Actually, I will only be doing the quilt top and later the binding.  I am not comfortable physically quilting bed size quilts on my sewing machine.  I have a home Janome, not a long-arm quilting machine.  So I will pay someone else do the machine quilting for this one.

The main thing in using T-shirts for the fabric in quilt tops is to be sure to stabilize the T-shirt material.  The easiest way is a fusible stabilizer. I tend to cut widely around the T-shirt design I want to feature.  I then iron on the fusible stabilizer before I cut the square or block shape desired.  I then played with the layout of the blocks.  As my blocks were not all the same size, I created a sketch and calculated how strips would need to be added so each row was the same length and each block within the same row was the same height.

Don't you love the block above with the three girls which states "cause you're there for me too!"?  And below the one with the Eskimo and his dog?

My niece's high schools colors were blue and white.  Her college colors were purple and gray.  I chose to use the purple and gray.  Purple fabrics are being used to even up the block size.  Gray fabric is being used for the sashing between the blocks.

My niece played softball and soccer.  She recently graduated from college with a BS in chemistry.

My niece has a very nice sense of humor.

Easy Elegance Mitts

These photos don't do justice to these lovely mitts.  The yarn is a much deeper, richer red.  I took several photos but couldn't seem to capture the color.  The pattern is Easy Elegance Mitts by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer.  I altered it and added the thumb gusset and thumb.  The original pattern only has a thumb slit.  I bought a supply kit from HeartStrings which included red Mohair/Wool yarn (Heirloom Aristocrat 12 ply) with garnet glass beads.

This photos is an attempt to show the beads in the cuff area.

Up and Down the Stairs

This small quilt is for the ALQS8 (another little quilt swap #8).  It is my attempt at an Escher-like effect as the quilt actually works in all directions as you can tell from this diptic photo collage.  I used the photo to poll friends for which way it should hang.  The majority agreed the top one on the left.

Here's the finished quilt.  It is machine pieced and quilted.  It measures 18.5 inches square.

Here's the back.  I still need to add the sleeve to the back for hanging.

Here are my past entries for the other seven:
1st: Laced Ribbons Quilt
2nd: Flower Basket Quilt
3rd: Fractures I
4th: Blue Hawaii Wall Hanging
5th:  Winter
6th: Mariner’s Compass Rose
7th:  Country Garden Small Quilt

More Hats

I only intended to make one or maybe two minion hats but three friends asked me to make some for them.  I sent this one off to a great-niece whom I hope will like it.  The pattern is Minion Hat by Maura Houston.  The yellow yarn for this one is Berroco Ultra Alpaca.  I used scraps for the black, white, and grey from my scrap basket.

And the second one was made for a friend's son. The yellow yarn is Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Prints.  Again the black, white, and grey are from my scrap basket.

Four more minion hats have been knitted at the request of friends.

This one is not a minion hat but rather uses the pattern Percy Jackson's Camp Half~Blood Beanie by Nancy Fry.  The yellow yarn is left over from the first minion hat.  The duplicates stitches for the horse were down using brown, white, and grey yarns from my scrap basket.  Hope my great-nephew like it.

More Knitted Hats and Some Fingerless Mitts

I have a lot of nieces (11)/ nephews (11)and a growing number of great-nieces (up to 8) with two new ones this year) and great-nephew (3 now).  I've been on a roll this year with knitting gifts for some of them.

These first two were made using left over yarn from the slippers.   Both were made using the pattern Regular Guy Beanie by Chuck Wright.  Both went to great-nephews for Christmas.  I downsized the regular guy beanie pattern, casting on only 72 stitches rather than 84.

Second regular guy beanie made in child size:

I used the regular guy beanie pattern for this one for a nephew.  I used two yarns from my stash (the brown is Berroco Ultra Alpaca; the other is leftover Maine Woods hand painted wool).  The effect was almost camouflage. 

This one will go to a great-niece.  The pattern is Purple Stitch Project Beanie by Paula Pereira.  The yarn is Adriafil Knitcol. 

This one is didn’t photograph well.  The colors are pink and orange.  Another great-niece will get this one.  The pattern used is Hermione's Globe Hat by Margie Mitchell.  The yarn is  Manos del Uruguay Maxima in peach melba.

This one (for another great-niece) uses the same Manos del Uruguay Maxima yarn.  The pattern is Techno Hat by Colleen Powley.  

These two are for twin girls (great-nieces).  I downsized the regular guy beanie.  Unsure what the yarn is.

These fingerless mitts are at the request of a brother-in-law with large hands.  The mitts are large on me so hopefully will fit him.  The pattern is Man Paws by Chelsea Fabrizio.  The yarn is  Lion Brand Heartland.

My Star Block for NASA

NASA issued a press release asking for star blocks.  Thanks for the tweet from @MartinYoung giving me the head’s up.  Here's mine

Here are the details on the block requirements (link removed 3/2017).

Here’s an old post about the time I worked for NASA during the summer between my first and second years of medical school -- My First Research Experience.

Ashbury Mitts and More

These Ashbury mitts were fun to knit as I enjoy knitting fingerless mitts and I enjoy lace knitting.  The pattern is Ashbury Mitts by Simona Merchant-Dest.  The yarn is Bijou Spun by Bijou Basin Ranch Lhasa Wilderness (75/25 Yak & Bamboo) in a lovely cream color (the photo does not do it justice).  These are for one of my nieces.

With the leftover yarn I made two baby hats.  This first one is a Christmas gift for a grand-niece who was born this fall.  The pattern is Lacy baby / toddler hat by Linda Kuzma.  I used some unknown leftover pink yarn to crochet the ribbon.

This one used not only the leftover yarn from the Ashbury mitts but also yarn left over from two other projects -- Malabrigo Yarn Lace in dusty rose (left over from the swirl jacket)  and Rowan Kidsilk Haze Glamour in blood red (left over from the modified girlie mitts).   There was only enough of the Kidsilk for the lower half.   It’s a little small so not sure it will fit the other grand-niece born this year or not.  I may have to donate it to the local children’s hospital.

Fantasy Footwear Finished!

I have finished the quilt except for adding the sleeve for hanging and a label.  The quilt is machine appliqued and quilted.  It measures 31.5 in square.

The next several quilts are my attempt to show the details of the quilt.  Here is the toe  of the shoe.  There’s a small blood stain near the daffodil closest to the toe which is difficult to see in this photo but easy to see in this instagram photo.  It' didn’t come out.  I may have to add a ladybug or bee to cover it.

Here is the heel of the shoe.

The flowers around the "ankle."

The butterfly and flower buds.

One of the daffodils and the straps across the instep.

And the back

The previous posts on the inception and making of the quilt
Fantasy Footwear Quilt-- the Beginning
Fantasy Footwear -- Part Two
Fantasy Footwear -- Part Three

I plan on entering the quilt into The Great Arkansas Quilt Show 3.  Not sure this one will win anything but I did win best hand quilting in The Great Arkansas Quilt Show 2 back in 2007.

Two Pairs of Non-felted Slippers

I really like how these slippers turned out.  The pattern is Non-felted Slippers by Yuko Nakamura.  It suggested so Yorkshire Tweed Chunky which I couldn’t find so I ordered Plymouth Encore Tweed Chunky.  The first one I knitted single strand was too flimsy so I decided to knit them using two strands of yarn which turned out lovely.  The soles are a blend of black tweed (color #217) and grey tweed (color #3525).  The tops or insteps of the one on the left used two strands of red (color #6389) while the one on the left used one strand of red blended with one of grey.

They fit my husband's feet (though I didn't manage to get a photo of him wearing them).  He's a size 9.  Here you can see them on my size 8 feet.

In an attempt to make them skid resistant, I used the technique suggested in this blog post (link removed 3/2017).  My husband found the Plasti Dip for me at Home Depot. 

I might should have added another layer of the Plasti Dip but I could definitely feel the resistance on my wood floors.

Niche in Blue -- Finished

I finished this sweater recently.  I used the pattern Niche by Norah Gaughan.  The yarn is Berroco Maya™ in blue,  color 5632.  When I first tried on the finished sweater the boat neck was very stretchy and wanted to constantly fall off the shoulder.  I decided to do two rows of single crochet around the neckline to prevent that effect.  For me, it's much more comfortable now.

I really thought I got the sleeves the same length but looking at the photo above it looks like the right sleeve may be shorter than the left by a 1/2 or so.  Oh well, I didn't notice it when I wore it.

Here you can see the cable pattern goes from one cuff to the other across the front. 

I wore a short sleeved scoop necked white t-shirt under the sweater.  It's tucked into my jeans which is why the upper part of the sweater looks lighter than than bottom.  Here's the back.

Fantasy Footwear -- Part Three

Let me refer you back to the these two previous posts (beginning, part 2) for the back story of this quilt.  It took me a while to decide how I wanted to do the actual quilting.  As you may notice in the photos below I made a few false starts with my marking.  I'll have to be careful when doing the quilting to not take a wrong turn onto those false start marks.  I finally settled on a circle around the shoe.  Inside the circle will be hatch quilting in a horizontal direction.  Outside the circle will be hatch quilting on a 45 degree angle.  The shoe will be outline quilted.  All of that will be done with white thread.  Then I will most likely do some additional quilting on top of the larger green leaves and tulips, we'll see.

In this photo, you can see the freezer paper I used to sketch my quilt design (after I had made the earlier false starts).   I marked the actual quilt using the freezer paper to get my outside square marked, then trimmed each corner from the circle and marked the circle.

And here is one corner marked.  I don’t plan to mark the inner hatch marks until I have stitched around the shoe and stitched the circle plus another inner circle 1/4 inch from the original circle.

Fantasy Footwear -- Part Two

See the prior post for the back story on this quilt work-in-progress.  After placing all the small pieces and fusing them into place it was time to do the detail stitching.  These photos show some of the stitching.  This first one shows the entire quilt top.

This one shows the heel of the shoe which I love.

Here is the butterfly which really came alive with the stitching added.

I really like how the daffodils came out.

The tulips may need a bit more work.

And here is the toe of the shoe with the bulb sitting on it

Now it's time to put the top, batting, and backing together and come to a decision regarding just how the actual quilting will be done.