Friday 23 January 2015

Memory Quilts - Shirts Behaving Badly


This week I made a start on piecing one of the pixellated heart memory quilts. Just at the moment my time is very limited so I'm snatching contained periods of time when I can to make progress little by little.  (Those of you who were on IG on Tues night during my 40 min block making slot will understand how I'm going about this.)  I've decided that since I only have these short bursts of time to tackle the quilts, making them up in blocks of 5 x 5 pixels will be a good way to eat this particular elephant.  

It was all going nicely, a wee block before making dinner, another the next evening before Holby City and some handsewing and then I discovered one of the shirts was not playing nicely.


In this photo you are looking at two 4.5" cut squares.  The one on the left is as cut, the one on the right is after pressing.  Of course, I only discovered this after one of these was stitched into my block!  Bummer - it pulled and skewed the block row horribly and there was just nothing for it but to switch it out with another fabric before moving on.  And, of course, all of these shirt squares will have to be replaced as I come to them in my little block stacks.  Better to have discovered it now though than later when lots of them are already stitched in to the quilt top.

The reason I mention this particularly is just as a wee word of warning to those of you who might consider making a shirt quilt at some time.  To be honest, it's very unusual for this to happen with shirts.  After all, by the time you are making a shirt quilt, the shirt has been washed, ironed and worn many times.  Any shrinkage with washing or ironing is likely already to have happened long before you come to cut it up into pieces.  This one has been an oddity in my experience and worth just keeping a wee eye out for.  If the iron doesn't glide smoothly it could be a sign that something's wrong!



So, after a brief interruption to perform a little block surgery and cut new shirt squares to replace all those I have already factored in to this red quilt and the other aqua version, I'm back on track and quite pleased with my quilt top strip that I've managed to piece in spite of time limitations this week.  It's progress and it looks like it's progress (ie not just a pile of cutting) which psychologically makes me feel like I'm getting somewhere.  I think I should plan more 5x5 pixel blocks for next week's sewing interludes too!


10 comments:

  1. This is a good plan for making progress and it is odd for a well washed fabric to do that, nice that you caught it right away.

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  2. It's a good job you caught it when you did! I wonder why one shirt seems to be completely different in terms of composition? You've made great progress so far (I'm a fan of pinning while I watch telly and then sewing a seam or two every time I go upstairs) - keep going!

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  3. I wonder if it's not 100% cotton and therefore the iron was too hot and it shrank a bit more? Still, loving the plan and the progress so far :o)

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  4. It looks gorgeous! Sorry that you had the trouble but looks like you found a nice replacement

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  5. Lots of frustration saved with your early detection - your plan is coming along nicely!

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  6. Oh no, what a pain in the proverbial! Do you think there was some poly in that one?

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  7. uh oh... What a pesty nuisance!

    I wish you more sewing time, and no more misbehaving fabrics.. Humph!

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  8. Well done for overcoming the glitch and still making fab progress - keep going!

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  9. I've just been catching up on your blog and the journey of these memory quilts so far. These are such a lovely idea but I am sure working on them carries a range of emotions. Hopefully you won't have too many more misbehaving shirts!

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  10. gosh, just as well you had enough shirt squares. Good idea to make in blocks, I spent more time than enough crawling about the floor!

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