If you recall my post about the t-shirt quilt, you know that I’ll try anything once. In the case of the t-shirt quilt, I knew I would need to do this project twice. The first was for our son, the second would be for our daughter for her elementary school “graduation”. The first quilt was a challenge (to put it mildly) so I knew I would need to come up with a different method for the second. Voila! I was scrapbooking one weekend at one of my favorite places, The Scrapbook Manor, and Karen had a recently completed t-shirt quilt draped over a chair. I found my new method! Grab a cold lemonade and your stack of t-shirts and let’s get started!
I started by cutting all the t-shirts down to size. I cut both the front and the back of each t-shirt at the same time with my Olfa rotary cutter. Once again, I used a 12″x12″ cardboard template from my scrapbook supply stash.
Next, I sandwiched a piece of 11″x11″ batting in between each pair of t-shirt layers.
I stitched both diagonals to hold the batting in place. If I had to stitch over a large area of screenprinting, I stitched on top of a piece of paper so the presser foot wouldn’t get stuck on the ink.
Next, I laid all the squares out on the floor to determine their placement so no two similar colors would be touching, if possible. Starting with the top row of squares, I seemed the squares together with wrong sides facing so that the seem would be on the front of the quilt. I used a 1″ seam allowance. When I finished all the rows, I seamed each row to the next using the same procedure again with a 1″ seam allowance.
With the t-shirts all connected into one blanket, I stitched 1″ from the edge all the way around the outside of the blanket. That was the easy part! Little did I know the next step would take 5 times longer to complete!
Next, I used my favorite Fiskars scissors to cut a fringe in each seam taking care to stop short of cutting through the stitching.
Once that process was complete, my T-shirt Quilt #2 was finished! Much easier than the first! Give it a try – you know you have the t-shirts!
I know. I know. It’s November 30th and I’m just starting NOW. Well, when I first signed on to the project, I picked my album base from my vast stash and even picked a pad of 6″x6″ paper to use so technically, I started about 2 months ago. Today’s the day, no more procrastinating. Here goes:
I dug deep into my old office tool box and used an adjustable hole punch to match the holes for the spine rings. Love those old office tools and supplies! They don’t make ’em like they used to.
Stashes are wonderful things. So much better for me than a closet full of shoes! Need red and green? No problem. Need sparkly? No problem. Ribbon, flowers, brads, plastic, glitter spray, ink??? Check! This project is starting out to be more fun than I anticipated and I’m not even at Day One yet! 
Stay tuned for my next post to see how I’ve put all this together to begin creating something wonderful.
Next, I painted Liquitex Matte Medium (craft stores in the paint aisle) onto muslin with a sponge brush. I had to work fast since it seemed like it would dry fast. I only painted the muslin in the areas where printing would be. Why waste the good stuff? I placed the transparency onto the muslin, ink side down and used the bottom of a Sharpie to emboss. I pressed hard but could also see which areas I had done since I was working under bright lights. The air bubbles disappeared in the areas I rubbed.
This resulted in a piece of muslin that had some sheen to it wherever the medium was painted on. It dried a bit shiny (and stiffer) in most places. Probably would go with a silk-screener for the wedding but I still like this technique and hope to find a really cool use for it. Perhaps on an already-made fabric album cover or a ready-made tote bag. Anything that wouldn’t lay flat for a silk-screen machine! I want to try it with a photograph, too!
